


How to Save the World

by formerlydf



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Louis bossing people around, M/M, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 13:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5207990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/formerlydf/pseuds/formerlydf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis is an award-winning reporter who's been voted "most likely to get arrested while investigating a story" three years running; Superman is the most interesting new thing to come to Metropolis, England in years; and Liam is a pain in Louis's ass. At first, at least.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Save the World

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to [harriet_vane](http://archiveofourown.org/users/harriet_vane/pseuds/harriet_vane) for more than a year of cheerleading when I sent her every single section as it was written, to [duckgirlie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/duckgirlie/pseuds/duckgirlie) for the britpick, and to [hapakitsune](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hapakitsune/pseuds/hapakitsune) for the truly stunning beta. Ilu babe but I'm still not calling this fic "Holding Out For a Hero."
> 
> This fic also owes a debt to the show Lois & Clark, for obvious reasons, and specifically to [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAQb-M4f0gs), which I watched about a million times over the course of writing this fic.
> 
> Need a visual reference for glasses!Liam? [Here](http://totallyimaginaryfriend.tumblr.com/post/40793517619/theboycanthelpit-liam-payne-is-clark-kent) and [here](http://totallyimaginaryfriend.tumblr.com/post/84798156092/so-first-this-happened-and-then-this-happened).

Louis is the first one to call him Superman. It is, in the end, a decision he will come to regret more than the Carrot Incident of Which They Do Not Speak — although in his defense, the name is an accident, and he doesn’t think about the Nietzsche of it all until Zayn points it out. Which doesn’t make it better, exactly, but how was he to know it would catch on?

-

Superman comes to Metropolis around the same time that dorky bloke with the glasses comes to work for The Directioner. One of these events is far more newsworthy than the other; Louis only really notices the latter a few weeks later, when Paul up and assigns Dorky Glasses to work with Louis because he has clearly _lost his mind_. Louis only associates the two events because when Superman comes to bust up the illegal-animal smuggling case that Louis has been investigating, instead of following Louis around like a good little junior reporter, Payne is —

“— late!” Louis shouts. “The biggest story this month and he’s not even answering his bloody phone!”

Paul winces. Louis wonders if he’s soundproofed his office yet. It’s his own fault if he hasn’t; Louis’s been this loud for literal decades, he’s not about to stop now.

“I did try and tell you I was better with human interest stories,” Payne tells Paul sheepishly, which is all well and good except for how he is _utterly useless_.

“Well, you’re just going to have to get better at investigative journalism, because I’m not letting Louis work alone again until he stops getting voted ‘most likely to get arrested while investigating a story.’” Paul delivers this with the sort of placid solidity that always gets _him_ voted ‘most likely to have killed someone while part of an elite fighting team that he’s not allowed to talk about.’ “Suck it up, both of you.”

“So he’s, what, a nanny?” Louis squawks. “I don’t need someone to look after me! I have Zayn!”

“Zayn actively eggs you on.”

“Harry, then.”

“Harry folds like a wet rag when it comes to you. Anyway, he’s more useful on the celebrity beats.”

“Niall?”

“Niall thinks the sun shines out your arse. Face it, Louis, nobody in this office can keep up with you, and the ones who can aren’t going to do a damn thing to keep you in check before you wind up dead or in a cell. Of course I had to turn to the new lad.” He turns his frown on Payne. “As long as next time, he makes sure not to be late.”

Payne flushes a dull red. “Yes, sir.”

“Oh, don’t call him sir, it gives him airs,” Louis sighs. “God, I’m going to have to teach you everything, aren’t I?”

-

Louis approves of Superman. He’s very newsworthy, which means that Louis can write lots of brilliant articles about him and sell lots of newspapers and win lots of awards. He’s also very fit. These are the two qualities Louis likes most in his men. (Substitute “works at a newspaper” for “newsworthy” and they’re also the two qualities Louis likes most in his friends.)

Superman has also developed this very endearing habit of being there when Louis is about to back off a roof or possibly get shot by Swiss arms dealers. Louis would like to encourage this habit, although he maintains that he would’ve been able to talk the arms dealers into letting him go if he’d had a few more minutes.

“Not that I’m not grateful,” he says, which has as much to do with being pressed up against Superman’s very lovely chest as it does with the dramatic rescue. “But I am very good at my job, you know.”

Superman’s face wavers on the border between polite and skeptical. “Yes, but there were guns to your head. Many guns. At least three guns.”

“I cracked the mayor’s embezzling scandal last year,” Louis explains patiently. “It’s hardly the first time I’ve had a gun to my head, is it?”

“I don’t know, is it?” Superman asks, sounding a bit alarmed.

“That was a rhetorical question,” Louis says. “Obviously it’s not the first time I’ve had a gun to my head.”

And yeah, alright, maybe he had been starting to get a _tiny_ bit nervous that his excellent communication skills were in fact going to get him in more trouble this time, not less — “more trouble” in this case meaning “less alive” — but he’s not planning on admitting that to someone who wears his pants on the outside and can apparently deflect bullets with the power of his pecs alone.

“Is this _normal_ , for reporters?” Superman asks.

Louis sniffs haughtily. “I can’t help it if the rest of them aren’t as devoted to journalistic excellence as I am.” Well, Zayn’s not bad. And Niall is usually pretty game as long as it doesn’t involve too much running. Even Harry is up for the occasional investigation, despite the fact that his idea of research usually just involves gossiping with his astonishingly large posse of hipster celebutantes. 

On, the other hand, Payne is — 

Well, shit. “Well, shit,” Louis says, and accidentally kicks Superman’s shin.

“What now?”

“I’ve forgot about Payne,” Louis sighs. Superman makes a little noise that sounds enough like curiosity to keep Louis going. “He’s my partner. Well, I say partner, really I mean he was forced on me because my boss thinks I need a babysitter.”

Superman doesn’t say anything, which feels very pointed when Louis remembers that they’re a thousand metres above the ground and flying away from people who would probably still very much like to shoot Louis.

“Well, I don’t need _him_ as a babysitter, he keeps wandering off,” Louis says. “Anyway, he's boring. I had to sneak away from him just to get into that warehouse in the first place. Look, are you sure about that interview? As long as we're up here."

"I don't think it would be a good idea," Superman says, and Louis's stomach swerves as they drop down towards the roof of the Directioner building.

Superman sets him gently down on the roof despite Louis's protestations. "What about a quote?" Louis shouts after him as he begins to fly away.

Superman barely even pauses midair as he shouts back, "Try to stay away from people with guns!"

-

Zayn says, “You need to be nicer to Liam, you’re upsetting him.”

“What do you mean, of course I’m nice to him,” Louis says. “Go away, I’m almost done with this article.”

“You’ve misspelled ‘alligator’ and you can’t use the word ‘cock’ in the newspaper,” Zayn tells him. Bloody editors, always trying to correct things. “It’s not like he asked to be your babysitter.”

“Do you think I can describe Smith-Pufferington’s hair as mullet-like? It is a bit mullet-y, isn’t it?"

“I think Liam’s my friend and you should stop being an asshole to him,” Zayn says, which is appealing to Louis’s basic sense of human decency and, as such, is dirty pool. Zayn should know better.

“Since when is he your friend? You’re my friend. He’s only been here for like three weeks, you don’t get to be on his side yet.” ‘Mullet-like’ is probably acceptable, Louis thinks; anyway, it's nicer than 'dead-animal toupée,’ which was his original description. Louis is a model of restraint.

“He’s been here for two months, and I’ve known him longer than I’ve known you, idiot. We were at school together. If anything, I should always be on his side."

Louis stops typing and spins around to stare. "You were at school together?" Zayn's made a few comments about school and growing up before, but Louis always just assumed that was a polite fiction designed to cover up the fact that Zayn had appeared one day in a burst of light, fully formed and perfect, and therefore had never been forced to suffer through the awkward indignities of teenager-hood. The idea that other people can corroborate Zayn's mythical adolescence — people who aren't Zayn's equally-perfect and thus equally-untrustworthy family — is mind-boggling.

“Yeah,” Zayn says slowly. “We’ve gone over this, Louis, I didn’t actually just rise like Botticelli’s Venus.”

“Well, obviously not, you hate the ocean,” Louis says, rolling his eyes. "You? At school? Really? Did you have spots? Does he have pictures? Does he have blackmail material on all your stupid crushes?"

"You won't find out if you're not nice to him," Zayn points out. "Also, no."

Well, that’s just cruel. Louis is an investigator, of course he’s going to ask these sorts of questions. "You're not my favorite anymore," Louis says, spinning around to go back to writing his article, because journalism is beautiful and loves him and will never betray him.

"Also, you've got at least three comma splices and your tense keeps switching," Zayn says. Like the cold-hearted bastard that he is, he ignores Louis's groans and punches him on the arm. "Be nice, I mean it."

"I'm always nice," Louis tells him loudly as he walks away, and half the office shouts back, "No you're not!"

Louis works with the worst people, really he does.

-

Because Louis is an excellent friend and a good person and also because Zayn comes up with horrible revenge plans, he makes a concerted effort to be nicer to Liam. Mostly this involves not calling him useless or groaning loudly whenever he walks into the office, but really, Louis’s just a man, he can only do so much. Liam knows what he means.

Also, Liam keeps insisting that he doesn't have any embarrassing photos or gossip of Zayn as a spot-ridden teenager, so he clearly isn't willing to put in the effort to deserve Louis's nicest behavior. Louis likes to say that he can’t be bought, but that’s only when it comes to journalistic integrity. Everything else is negotiable.

As difficult as it is to admit, though — and it is very, very difficult to admit, even inside his head — Louis was wrong. Liam does have his uses. For example:

"Payne!" Louis shouts. "What happened to my notes on that stupid statue-dedicating ceremony Paul wanted me to write about?"

Liam pushes his glasses up his nose. "That article was due yesterday, Louis."

Louis raises his eyebrows. "Yes, and?"

Liam sighs and opens the newspaper he just has lying around on his desk for some reason. Seriously, who does that? The internet is quite literally right there.

 _History at What Cost? Community Protests New Statue Ceremony_ , page A12 says, and in smaller letters, _by Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson_.

Louis blinks at it, confused. "I didn't write that," he says. His name is on the byline, but he thinks he would have remembered falling asleep across his keyboard.

"No," Liam says. "I did."

Louis frowns. “Why’d you do that, then?”

“Well, it’s not as if you were going to.” Is that a scold? Liam looks all bland and innocent, but it sounds like a scold. It's a sneaky scold. 

“I might’ve done!" He didn't, obviously, but he might have.

“When I asked if you wanted me to go talk to more people in the community you told me you didn't know what I was talking about and you were falling asleep just thinking about it. Then you ran off to go bully the police into giving you details on that warehouse explosion."

Oh, Louis remembers that now. It ended up just being a disgruntled employee, recently sacked, with a pipe bomb made of manure. Dull dull dull.

"I told him not to put you on the byline, but he didn't listen," Niall calls from where he's fiddling with his camera equipment.

Liam shrugs. "Well, he did take some of the notes."

Louis's notes, if Louis remembers correctly, involved a lot of variations on the word "boring" and also "the mayor is a cock" written in different handwritings. "Oh," Louis says. "Well. Good. Well done." And then, because he really _didn't_ want to write that article and he's trying to reward good behavior, and also a little bit because Zayn made him feel guilty, he adds, "Thank you."

Liam beams at him. It's really not right for him to be so happy about a stupid thank you. 

"You're welcome," Liam says, and they stare at each other for a moment before Louis spins around and heads for the door. 

"I'm going to talk to Dr Watson about the lightning strikes," he announces, without turning around. "You might as well come along."

Liam catches up with him on the way out the door, and Louis adds loftily, "Don't think this means anything, Payne, I still don't need a partner. And now I’m just going to force you to write all the stupid things Paul assigns to me.”

“I sort of figured,” Liam says, but he sounds strangely okay with that.

-

“So,” Louis says to Superman, two weeks after he graciously allows Liam to become his tagalong and three weeks since the last time he saw Superman. “Long time no see.”

This is not the first thing he says to Superman that day. The first thing is “Put me down, you idiot, I’m in the middle of something!” but then all of a sudden he’s on top of another building and Superman is gone, and then something is exploding high up above their heads, so Superman probably doesn’t care.

The _second_ thing he says is “Long time no see.” He means it more as a light-hearted comment, like ‘ha ha, look at me making small talk, also coincidentally notice how long it has been since I have been in trouble and needed a rescue,’ but it could also potentially be interpreted as ‘look how long I’ve been waiting on this stupid rooftop.’ Oh well; if Superman wants to take it that way, that’s not Louis’s problem.

God, but he’s gorgeous, though. 

Look, Louis has to notice these things. He's a reporter. Details are crucial, even details like the little smudge of ash on Superman's cheek and the way his hair is all mussed and falling in his face. He looks disheveled. Louis wants to bite him. 

What even happens if you bite Superman? Do your teeth just bounce off?

"I thought you said you were going to stay away from people with guns," Superman says.

"No, you said I should stay away from people with guns," Louis corrects helpfully. "Which is silly, anyway, because then I'd never be able to go yell at the police."

"Maybe —"

"And don't even tell me that maybe I shouldn't yell at the police, because if I didn't yell at the police, then how would I ever get anything done? It's not like they _want_ to tell us anything. It's my duty as a member of the free press. You might not know this, because you run around with your pants outside your trousers all day, but there's this thing about the public's right to know —"

"That's not —" Superman interrupts, and he sounds so sincere that Louis breaks off halfway through his freedom of information tirade. It's a good tirade. Harry and Niall have been known to drunkenly recite it at office parties, although that always becomes a mess because Harry take about twice as long to say anything as Niall does. On the other hand, Niall's impression of Harry's impression of Louis is aces.

"I was going to say that maybe you should tell someone," Superman says hesitantly. "Before you go yell at people with guns. So that they'd know to look out for you."

Louis rolls his eyes. "But then they'd try and stop me, obviously."

"So you'd rather go get guns pointed at you when nobody knows where you are?"

"Well, I haven't got shot yet. Mostly." Except that once, but everyone at work agreed that was an accident and could have happened to anyone. "Look, do I come up to you and tell you how to do _your_ job?"

Superman frowns. "Er. Yes. You literally just did that thirty minutes ago."

Oh, like that even counts. "Like that even counts," Louis says. "I was busy."

"They were trying to tie you up in a building that was about to explode," Superman points out. 

That is an absolutely ridiculous interpretation of the situation, and anyway, if Louis couldn’t deal with a little rope and C4 now and then, he’d have gone off to be a journalist in some less exciting city. Like Gotham.

“Some people are just very threatened by how good I am at my job,” Louis says. “Temporary difficulty. I was handling it. Anyway, it wouldn’t have been a problem if you’d got the bomb out first. They were about to tell me why they were working with the Corden family, I could tell."

"See, now you're doing it again!"

"I am not!" He definitely is. "It's… constructive criticism." Superman seems like he listens to constructive criticism. One of them ought to, at least. “I mean, it’s nice that you want to make sure I’m alright and everything, but I’m very good at what I do, you know.”

“I know,” Superman says.

“I looked after myself for years before you swooped in with your tights,” Louis continues, poking Superman in the chest — a surprising amount of give, considering that bullets literally bounce off him — and then pausing. “Wait, have you read my work?”

“Well, you called me Superman, I was a little curious,” Superman says, and before Louis can fall off the roof and die of mortification, he adds, “So, this has happened before? You being good at your job gets you out of being shot or thrown into exploding buildings?”

“Yeah, exactly.” 

“But some people are threatened by how good you are at your job,” Superman continues.

“I am surrounded by imbeciles, yes.”

“So you being good at your job also gets people shooting at you and throwing you into exploding buildings in the first place?”

“Ah.” Louis coughs. “It’s not a perfect system. And that’s not the point!”

“Right, of course, constructive criticism,” Superman says, nodding and looking very upright and attractively strong-jawed. It’s appalling. “So next time, would you like me to just leave you to it?”

Louis blinks up at him. Superman is still stoic-faced, but there’s a little tilt at the corner of his mouth that makes Louis think he might, actually, be a little bit funny.

Imagine that.

“Well,” Louis says thoughtfully, “your way has a nicer view.”

Superman smiles. “I like the flying too,” he says, like he’s confiding something, and scoops Louis up against his chest so they can head off. He’s very… firm.

“Right. Yes, that is exactly what it is,” Louis says, and spends the rest of the trip peppering him with questions about the Santini brothers and their military-grade weaponry.

-

Liam is frowning at him. Liam has been frowning at him for the past hour. It's very distracting.

Louis doesn't understand Liam at all, really. He's spent all week trying to convince Louis that this community rally thing is important, and now Louis is here, against all common sense and inclination. Liam should be pleased. Instead he's frowning. Louis doesn't mind people being stroppy with him, it happens often enough, but he at least likes to know why. 

"Well?" Louis demands, when he's finally sick of it. 

"Well what?" Liam asks, the faker.

"Look, you've got five seconds to tell me what's got you in a mood, or I'm going to get ice cream and you can keep watching interpretive dance by yourself." He waves at the stage.

"It's a protest," Liam insists in a distinctly sulky manner.

"Yes, Payne," Louis says. "I read the manifesto. It's someone protesting through interpretive dance, and it's stupid. If you don't spit it out in five seconds you're not allowed to be mad at me anymore."

"That's ridiculous," Liam says.

Louis raises his eyebrows. "Four seconds."

"We're working!"

Louis glances dubiously at the protester, who's making some sort of low cooing sound. "Three seconds. And you're not allowed to complain to Zayn after, either."

"Of course I'm allowed to complain to Zayn, you got yourself kidnapped," Liam snaps. 

Oh. Hm. That's not what Louis would've guessed Liam would be mad about. Also, unfair. "Go ahead, blame the victim, why don't you?"

"You ran off in the middle of the night without telling anyone!" Liam says. 

"Shhh!" a nearby old lady whispers, glaring at them.

"Oh, come off it, she's just waving bits of feathers around," Louis hisses, but he pulls Liam farther away. And, coincidentally, closer to the ice cream stand. "I was perfectly fine! Anyway, what are you on about? We had a deal."

Liam stares at him. "No we didn't."

"You said you wanted to do the boring bits, so I let you write all the human interest shit and I go actually investigate things. It's a win-win. We agreed."

"I didn't!" Liam says.

"Well, you kept wandering off, I thought it was implied."

"It wasn't! And you can't yell at me for wandering off when you keep running off without telling anyone where you're going," Liam says, because clearly he doesn't know Louis at _all_. "You could've got killed and nobody would've known!"

"You worry too much. Anyway, Superman was there," Louis says.

Liam sighs in that multi-octave way people only do when they're really frustrated. Louis should know, he's heard it enough. "Superman won't always be there! He's not — he doesn't know everything, you know."

"I don't," Louis says. "He won't let me interview him."

“Well — what if one day he isn’t? You keep talking about how you’d be fine without him —”

“Because I would,” Louis insists. Actually, he may huff a little. He also crosses his arms across his chest, which makes him realise that he’s apparently turned into his mum sometime over the past few years, except that in this situation his mum would definitely agree with Liam and scold him for running into danger on his own, Louis, doesn’t he know what it would do to the girls and Ernest if he got hurt?

Wow, even Louis’s imaginary Mum-voice is scarily effective on the guilt front. 

“Right, and I know you’ve been doing this longer than Superman’s been around and you’ve been mostly fine except for that time you got shot —”

“That was an accident and could have happened to anyone! Everyone said so!” Also, who told Liam about that? Louis is going to kill them.

Liam frowns. “You know that’s not, like. Helping your case. Right? I mean, accidents happen a lot.”

Louis is going to have a clever response to that in _just one second_ , but Liam keeps talking and Louis loses his chance. Who knew that Liam was so mouthy?

“We wouldn’t stop you, if you told us where you were going,” Liam says, and he sighs. “I wouldn’t stop you. And! If you do get… hurt, and you can’t tell us what happened, don’t you want Zayn or someone to know who’s responsible so he can write, like, an expose and get the people who did it in trouble?”

Louis opens his mouth, and then closes it again.

Liam blinks. “What, really? I thought Niall was joking when he said that was the only thing that would get you to listen.”

“Did I say I was listening? No, I didn’t, Payne,” Louis says grandly. “But, for the record, Niall knows never to underestimate my pursuit of journalistic excellence.”

“So you will, then?” Liam asks, his eyes wide and hopeful, sort of like a puppy. Even his eyebrows are annoyingly noble and concerned. Louis can’t crush the dreams of a face like that. 

Well, he could, but he’d have to put a lot of effort into it.

“I will consider it,” Louis allows. “And since when do you gossip about me with Niall, anyway?” Are they friends? When did that happen? Louis should be told when other people are in danger of ganging up on him.

Liam shrugs. “They worry about you, you know. I bet even Superman worries about you.” He smiles a little. He’s so stupidly pleased all the time, except when he’s frowning. It’s horrible. Everything is horrible. Louis can’t believe someone not his mum actually got him to feel guilty about something. 

God, he needs to get out of this conversation. Even interpretative dance would be better than this.

“Right, come on, glad that’s settled, ice cream time now,” he says abruptly, grabbing Liam’s wrist and dragging him to the ice cream stand. 

“But the protest?” Liam asks, and Louis sighs very loudly. Nobody appreciates the sacrifices he makes.

“Fine, then we go back to the protest, but you’re not allowed to shush me when I make fun of it.”

“Yeah, alright,” Liam says, still smiling, which is distinctly unfair.

They get ice cream, and then a representative from SyCo gets on the stage to equivocate about how they’re totally listening to the voice of the people (they’re not) but they’re actually not going to make the environmental safety changes that the protesters have been demanding with their very bad and very feathery interpretative dances, and then the protesters start yelling and throwing things in a way that could be described as “united community action” or “righteous anger” or possibly “a riot,” which is very exciting, and Louis spends a lot of time taking pictures and interviewing people, and Liam doesn’t say “I told you so,” even once. It’s a pretty good day, all things considered.

-

For the record — and as a journalist, Louis knows just how important the record is — for the record, Louis does consider calling someone the next time he gets a tip in the middle of the night and goes racing out the door. He considers it while he’s putting on his shoes, and then he considers how likely it is that Liam will tell him to wait before staking out his newest lead in the water gun conspiracy investigation, and then he considers Liam’s disappointed face, and then he considers his limited time window, and then by the time he’s finished considering he’s already out the door and he figures he might as well get on with it.

He does send a text, though, for the sake of his journalistic legacy. And also because sometimes when you’re going to meet an arms dealer of questionable loyalty down by the shipping docks in the middle of the night it’s good to have a little leverage in addition to a hidden inflatable life vest.

He is, quite honestly, expecting it to go down in flames. Like, not metaphorical flames. Literal flames. Not because he’s never had a fire-free clandestine meeting with an informant before, but just because that’s how his luck’s been recently. He'll be in the middle of an investigation, something will go wrong, and before he's gotten himself out of it Superman will show up and save the day. It's always lovely to see Superman in action, especially when he's punching people who wanted to kill Louis, but it does make a man feel useless. It all seems like horribly embarrassing proof that Louis really can't look after himself.

Which is why it's so satisfying that nothing goes wrong. The tip was good, the source was surprisingly helpful but not so helpful that all her information immediately became suspect, and he didn't end up needing either the leverage or the life vest. 

With just a little more research, he's going to be able to prove that the distributors — at a Syco subsidiary, no less — not only knew that the super-strength super-soakers could break bones, but deliberately let them go to market so they could recall them and sell them to foreign governments as customs-proof riot gear. Even if Syco gets out of it like always, it’ll completely crack the lid off the corruption in the water gun industry. Louis is amazing. Paul is going to fall down and worship at his feet after he stops yelling at Louis for setting up a 3 am meet with an informant of dubious intentions at the bloody docks.

Of course, once his new best friend has disappeared into the riverside mist and Louis has started walking back to town — at least, the part of town where he'll actually be able to catch a cab — someone gets mugged in the next alley over.

Louis doesn’t do muggings. He’s reported on them, sure, there were the serial muggings of 2011, but he’s not very good with them in person. It's easy enough to run verbal rings around maniacal cult leaders and their heavily-armed followers, but so far Louis has mostly dealt with muggers by not being mugged. 

It’s lucky, then, that while he’s figuring out his next move — put on a deep voice and pretend to be the police? scream really loudly? grab a nearby lead pipe and make a go of it? — Superman shows up. Louis can tell, even from the next alley over. It's a very distinctive sound once you've heard it enough.

He could walk away. Instead he turns the corner and swings into the next alley. Louis makes a point of not leaving crime scenes unless the police are kicking him out, and anyway, he's hoping to get a lift home.

He takes a few pictures while he's there. "Superman disarms mugger, saves innocent citizen, delivers lecture on moral consequences of theft and importance of community” is old news by now, but it's still aesthetically gratifying.

And for the record, Louis is far more dignified with the whole rescue thing than this kid, who's fawning over Superman in a way that is, quite frankly, embarrassing. Even Superman looks uncomfortable. It's no wonder that he whooshes them off as quickly as possible.

It does leave Louis a bit at loose ends, though. Does Superman gently shepherd all his rescuees back to their homes? Probably. It would be just like him.

Whatever. Louis is a strong, independent journalist who can definitely get home on his own, even if he's also a lazy journalist and doesn't really want to. 

Just as he starts walking, though, suddenly there’s a red and blue chest in front of him. 

"Are you stalking me?" Louis blurts out. It's not really how he'd intended to start the conversation, but whatever, it’s out there now. “Also, do you sleep?"

Superman blinks. “Erm. Sometimes? The sleeping, I mean. Not the stalking. I’m not stalking you.”

“You just happened to be here in the middle of the night?” Louis asks. Then, because he’s trying to be better about the gratitude thing and it’s easier to do when it was someone else who needed to be saved, he hastily adds, “Not that I’m complaining, mind. Good luck for that kid getting mugged.”

"Definitely an accident," Superman says. "Not that it's not nice here! I just wasn't. Here, that is. I was flying around, you know. Heard the noise." 

Well, that’s reasonable, probably, although it makes that whole thing about him sleeping even more questionable. Louis will have to look into that; nobody wants to trust their life to a sleep-deprived superhero. “Oh. I thought you might’ve known I was here.”

“No,” Superman says. “I definitely did not know that. But it’s very nice to see you.” He pauses. They stand there in silence for a moment before he adds, hesitantly, "Would you like a lift home?" 

"I thought you'd never ask," Louis says, already moving forward to wrap his arms around Superman's shoulders. "It's 4 am, mate. You might not need to sleep, but the rest of us do."

"I sleep," Superman protests mildly, and Louis snorts.

"Okay, Mr. Flying Around in the Middle of the Night. Course you do."

-

Louis knows he's going to get scolded for that text message. He knew it when he sent the text in the first place, really, it’s just that he hadn’t cared. Sometimes when Louis does something particularly scold-worthy, he has this awful habit of relishing the idea of future scoldings because they prove how clever he is, and forgetting that he actually hates getting scolded. 

No matter how many times he does it — and it’s a lot — this is, unfortunately, a problem that he only ever appreciates in hindsight.

He can’t even be too resentful this time — well, he _can_ , of course he can, and he absolutely plans to be, but he can see, in hindsight, that maybe “meeting watergun informant docks DO NOT COME OR HE WONT TALK call cops if not at work by 10am” probably wasn’t the most reassuring text to wake up to. Even if Louis did eventually remember to follow up with “ALL OK NOT DEAD.”

So Liam is definitely going to yell at him, and Louis is probably going to deserve it, even if it’s also Liam’s fault for convincing him to make that stupid promise in the first place. Really, he should’ve known better. It’s not like Louis has ever expended any effort to seem reassuring. And what did Liam expect, anyway, when he asked Louis to tell him before running into certain danger? That he magically wouldn’t be worried just because he knew Louis was definitely in certain danger instead of only probably in certain danger?

If you look at it that way, Louis realises near the end of his ride to work, Liam was practically asking for it. He’s just going to have to deal with it, as far as Louis is concerned.

He stomps into the office, ready to shout all this at Liam if he needs to, and then Liam spots him and says, “Thanks for texting me, Louis.” 

And then he smiles. Smiles! 

“Where did Paul even _find_ you?” Louis asks blankly.

Liam’s smile goes from ‘unbearably gentle’ to ‘confused,’ which Louis much prefers in the grand scheme of things. “Er. I think I found him, technically. Or Zayn found both of us? Not sure how that would work."

Louis is going to nip this one in the bud right here. "Right, well, obviously texting you wasn’t necessary anyway, because everything went perfectly. Superman didn't even need to show up."

Zayn snorts from where he’s, as usual, slouched over his desk, presumably cursing his alarm, the sun, the universe, and everything else that conspired to force him to wake up before noon. "But he did anyway, didn't he."

"Well. Yes. But not on purpose, he was just soaring around," Louis says, glaring. The jokes about him being a damsel are getting very boring. “It’s not like Payne told him or anything.” He lifts one eyebrow at Liam, just as a precaution. “Right?”

“Yes. I mean no?” Liam says, looking taken aback. “I mean. I’ve never actually talked to Superman.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. He’s got his head pillowed on his arms, but Louis can still tell.

“Shut up. Not you, Payne,” Louis says, waving a hand when Liam looks startled. “Anyway, he didn’t _need_ to be there, is the point, but I got a ride home and someone got saved from a mugger and he’s really, really fit, so it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

Liam pauses. “Am I… meant to answer that?”

“No,” Zayn calls from his desk.

“No, because I’ve got to go tell Paul I solved the water gun case and that I’m amazing,” Louis agrees. He’s only a few steps away when, because there are bags under Liam’s eyes and there’s something metaphorical eating at the bottom of Louis’s stomach, he turns back to ask, “You didn’t see it until the morning, right? My text?”

He doesn’t — he wouldn’t have wanted Liam to worry, that’s all. Not until everything was over.

“No,” Liam says quietly, and smiles. 

“Right. Well. Good.” Louis stops, shakes his head, and keeps going. “Get some sleep, Payne!” he yells behind him. “You look awful!”

-

“Oh good,” Louis says, and drags Liam down onto the bench next to him. “Sit here with me and look inconspicuous.”

They’re sat in the plaza two blocks away from the Directioner building, right in front of a massive office block and a few shops and things. Louis was just going to sit here playing with his phone all evening, but then Liam passed right by his bench and it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity. Anyway, he’s barely seen Liam more than twice a day ever since the water gun investigation wrapped up.

“What?” Liam asks. He’s going to do it. Louis can’t tell if he’s bullied Liam into being a good sport or not, but clearly something’s working. “I was on my way home, I need to make dinner —”

“No you don’t,” Louis says, swinging his legs over Liam’s lap so he’s trapped. “I’ll buy you dinner.”

“Er. Really?”

“Sure. There’s a doughnut place right across the street.”

Liam frowns. “You know doughnuts aren’t dinner, right?”

“Sure they are. It’s like wheat and stuff.” Ever since he left home, Louis has operated on a very strict “if I’m eating it at dinnertime, it counts as dinner” policy. It’s been surprisingly profitable so far, and anyway he’s got Harry to make sure he’s eating enough vitamins. “But there’s pizza next door, if you’re so picky. Just keep talking and don’t move.”

Pressed up against Liam as he is, he can feel it the moment Liam starts to tense up. “Why?” Liam asks hesitantly.

“Because Jules Stravonski has an office in that building _don’t look at it_ and I want to make sure I know when he leaves,” Louis says. “And it’s weird to be sitting on a bench by yourself all night.”

“But it’s less weird to sit on a bench with someone else?”

"Yes, obviously," Louis says. He considers rolling his eyes, but it's probably not Liam's fault that he's lived under a rock shielding him from normal human interaction his entire life. It's just going to have to be Louis's job to introduce him to being an actual person. "This way it's like we're just hanging out."

"On a bench."

"On a bench." Liam is still frowning like he's trying to turn this over in his head, or maybe like he's trying to decide whether he actually likes Louis enough to sit on a hard wooden bench for the next few hours eating pizza. Louis sighs and wheedles, "Come on, Payno. Think of it like a stakeout, except I don't have a car and we get to stretch our legs more."

"And we can't sing along to the radio," Liam says.

"Do you want me to sing, Payne?" Louis demands. "Because I can serenade you, just say the word. Pick a song, any song."

Liam smiles a little hesitantly, like he's not sure whether he's allowed to or not. Really, he's lucky that he met Louis when he did. In another few years, all this insecurity might have been irreversible. "That's all right —"

"What do you want? Are you a Sam Smith man? A little Jay-Z? Some Spice Girls?"

A sound that might be a giggle escapes from Liam's general vicinity. "No, it's fine —"

"Tell me what you want, what you really really want!" Louis belts, and pauses, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

"Louis!" Liam yelps in a terribly undignified way that Louis plans to savour. 

"That's not how the song goes, Liam," Louis says, shaking his head, and goes up an octave to sing, "'I'll tell you what I want, what I really want!'"

Liam's got his hands over his face, but Louis can still hear giggles leaking out. His cheeks are pink between his fingers.

Louis continues, triumphant, "So tell me what you want, what you really really want! 'I'll tell you what I want, what I really want!'"

Liam finally manages to control himself for long enough to press his hand over Louis's mouth, even if Louis does valiantly try to keep singing for a few more seconds. "Stop, stop, I'll stay!" he manages to choke out through his laughter. "People are staring!"

Louis sticks out his tongue and grins smugly when Liam immediately pulls his hand away. "Are you sure, Payno? Because there's more where that came from. Just say the word."

"I'm sure!" Liam says. "I'm sure. But you're still buying dinner."

"Deal. No take backs," Louis says, and settles his legs a little more firmly on Liam's lap.

-

Louis has decided that Liam is trainable. It'll be a terrible effort on Louis' part, obviously, but he’s willing to sacrifice himself for the cause just this once. 

Also, Liam is surprisingly easy. It only takes two slices of pizza before he lets Louis cajole him into a game of celebrity shag-marry-cliff, and it turns out that he has surprising — and wrong — opinions on the best characters in _Friends_ , so that eats up an hour and a half, no problem.

At that point, though, one of Louis's cop friends — yes, he has friends who are cops, or at least cops who are less annoyed by him than other cops and also owe him a few favors and can occasionally be persuaded to find him funny, because Louis is fucking delightful — sends him a text to let them know that Stravonski got a speeding ticket at least a mile away. Louis has a probably-not-illegal feed of the garage exit on his phone and Stravonski's car didn't go out that way, so that's a bust, and Louis might have been enjoying himself with the pizza and the company, but he definitely wouldn't have missed that ratbastard legging it out the front door.

That’s about when Louis decides that there's a secret entrance to the building. Which could be considered an imaginative leap, but now that Stravonski’s gone there’s no reason for Louis to sit around on a bench waiting to accost him for a quote, so he might as well go poking around with Liam.

They jump on a few likely looking tiles and press some shady bricks, but there’s nothing. After ten minutes circling the building, Louis is about ready to do some research and come at this from a different angle, which is when Liam leans on the weird round sculpture around the back and almost falls through the door that opens up.

So that helps.

At times like this, a reporter has two options. The first option is to head out and start looking up records and blueprints: who built the building, who owns the building, when the building has been renovated, where the nearest power lines are, why anyone might have put a secret entrance there in the first place. The second option is to just go inside.

Louis picks the not-boring option. He drags Liam along with him, because he can.

The entrance hidden inside the sculpture takes them down, and then up, and then left, and leads to a set of poky corridors; the floor's not dusty, presumably because of all the shady people sneaking around back here, but the walls, the ceiling, the light switches, and the mysterious tendrils dangling from the ceiling all are.

"Are we in the walls?" Louis hisses, trying to stifle a sneeze. 

"Probably," Liam whispers back. "Do you think it connects to the main rooms at all, or is like a whole other building?"

"Dunno," Louis says. "Oh, hold up, hold up."

The corridor they're in ends with two different closed doors, each looking equally grim. "Blast," Louis sighs. "Heads or tails, you think?" 

He turns to look at Liam, who is... frowning very intently at the doors. Well, alright then.

"Not sure that's going to help, mate," Louis says. "But it's probably about fifty fifty, right? Might as well flip for it."

"Right," Liam says abruptly, but when Louis moves to go get a coin out of his wallet, he says, "No, I mean right, I think we should go right."

Louis tries not to look as dubious as he feels. "You got that from looking at a door?"

"Just, erm. Instinct," Liam says. "Might as well, right?"

Part of Louis wants to go the other way just on principle, but they're in a _secret passage_ so he's inclined to be generous. The right-hand door, it turns out, leads to a slightly larger space with another door at the end of it. It’s about the size of five storage cupboards put together, but there are weird little statues scattered in niches all around, from the size of Louis’s palm to the size of his torso. He whips out his phone to take pictures; pity they don’t have Niall here, he supposes, but then three of them would probably be a bit crowded.

“Huh,” Liam says, and goes around tapping on the walls for some reason. Louis’s not sure that will even work when they’re _inside_ the walls, but in a few seconds Liam hooks his finger on something and slides open a hidden panel.

There’s a book inside. 

“You just found that?” Louis asks. “Just by tapping?”

Liam shrugs. It’s hard to tell in this light, but it looks like he might be blushing. “Er. Yeah? It just. Seemed to be sticking out a bit.”

"Right," Louis says. "Because when I put something away in the secret cabinet in my _secret cult room_ I never really bother closing the door properly. Especially when it's—"

Whoops, he hasn't even looked at the title, has he? For all he knows it's a book on fly-fishing and there's just some sort of sloppy weirdo living in the walls of the OrgCom building who never bothers to close his cabinets properly.

He looks down at the book. His eyes widen.

"Louis?" Liam asks, concerned.

"Liam," Louis says, still staring down, his voice feeling a bit strangled, "I could kiss you."

"What?" Liam yelps. Louis hears it, but a little muted, like his ears are surrounded by a fog of how incredible everything is. Louis is incredible. Liam is incredible. Paul is going to worship at their feet forever.

Louis waves his hand around. "In a metaphorical way," he says vaguely. This is so, so much bigger than Jules Stravonski. "Or a figurative one. Or something."

Although it wouldn't be so terrible, now that he thinks about it; Liam's a massive dork but he's hardly bad-looking, and he's got those shoulders, even if he keeps them hidden under all those terrible baggy clothes he wears. Plus he's got a nice smile, and anyway he just found Louis the best thing that's happened to him all week.

He is never working on anything without Liam again.

"Come on!" he says, looking up abruptly. "Let's see how far we can get before we get caught."

-

"PAYNOOOOOOO," Louis shouts, looking around. He bumps into a chest and staggers backwards, nearly spilling his drink. "Oi! Oh, hi Paul. Sorry about that."

"Uh huh," Paul says, neatly snagging the cup from Louis. "I'm confiscating this."

"Paul!" Louis yelps. "I am a _responsible adult_. I have, like, double-handedly exposed the seedy underbelly of a pantheistic cult lurking in the walls of some of our city's most richest buildings." Out of a spirit of helpfulness, he adds, "The other hand was Payne. Because he helped. That's why it's double-handedly," just in case Paul didn't get it.

"If exposing cults made you a responsible adult, Louis, I wouldn't get half as many headaches," Paul says.

"Paul," Louis says solemnly, reaching up to grab a handful of Paul's shirt, "we are going to win so. Many. Awards."

"Yeah," Paul says, smiling a little, "I reckon you two did good. Now let go of my shirt."

Louis lets go of his shirt, at which point an awful suspicion begins to develop. "You're not going to be smug because you made me work with Payne, are you?"

"Oh, I absolutely am," Paul says. "He's back by the hummus, by the way."

"What?" Louis asks, spinning around, which mean that he has to spend thirty seconds after that standing very still and trying not to fall over. Paul, because he is a dirty cheat, takes that opportunity to head off in the opposite direction, still holding Louis's drink and presumably still smug, the bastard. 

"We're not done talking about this!" he shouts, but he's got a more pressing target now. He heads determinedly hummus-wards before Liam can wander off. Again. At their own party.

Liam is indeed over by the hummus picking at a plate of moderately appetizing food, so Louis mentally forgives Paul just a little bit. Harry's there too, holding a glass of something green and talking at Liam, who's looking confused but still laughing in the appropriate places.

"Payno!" Louis yells cheerfully, swooping in to hook his arm around Liam's neck. "You went away! Why did you go away?"

“I didn’t go away,” Liam says, which is a _vicious lie_. Liam ought to be ashamed of himself, lying like that when he’s a reporter. Reporters should stand for things like truth! And justice! And, like. Other stuff, probably.

“I couldn’t find you,” Louis says, frowning at him. Definitely not pouting. 

“You’re drunk,” Harry proclaims cheerfully.

“I,” Louis proclaims right back, “am incredible. And so is Liam. And so are you but not as much as us, which is why we are having this party. Why aren't both of you drinking?"

"I had a Cosmo earlier!" Harry says. "Anyway I'm supposed to be cleansing."

Louis sniffs. "Cleansing. You're disgusting. If you go on a raw food diet next I'm disowning you as a friend."

"I went on a raw food diet last week," Harry says. "Except then I was hungry and Niall took me out for burgers."

"I'm glad that at least Niall has some sense," Louis says. He goes to take a sip of his drink except he doesn't _have_ a drink, because Paul stole it, because he's terrible. Terrible Paul. Louis steals some of Liam's hummus instead, even though it’s got parsley in. "He's a smart boy, that one. He'll go far. You need to get better snacks."

"You could get your own plate," Liam says, except he just holds his own plate a little closer to Louis so Louis can grab one of the little mushroom things.

"But yours is right here," Louis explains very persuasively. Harry doesn't look very persuaded, but Louis already has Liam's food, so that doesn't matter. "We should get drinks. I need more drinks. Terrible Paul stole mine."

He leans a little too far in the snack direction and sways into Liam's chest, but it's alright because Liam catches him. Liam is great. And very strong. Louis is just going to stay here for a little while.

"I'm not sure you really need any more drinks," Liam says, which seems wrong to Louis, but Liam is saying it in his reasonable voice. Louis will just wait a little while, then.

"But _you_ need more drinks," he says, popping the last mushroom thing in his mouth so his hand will be free to slap Liam on the chest. "And it's our party! Why aren't you drinking?"

"I tried that already," Harry says, taking a sip of his terrible green thing. Maybe Louis will steal the terrible green thing. "He says he can't drink. And he didn't want a kale smoothie, either."

Maybe Louis won't steal the terrible green thing.

"I said I would try it later!" Liam laughs. Nobody in the entire world has sounded that cheerful about trying a kale smoothie ever. "I'm alright with ginger ale for now, cheers."

“What do you mean, you can’t drink?” Louis demands.

Liam looks over at him. "I can't get drunk," he says, which, thank you, is very helpful and not at all what Louis just asked him.

"Yes, but _why_?" Louis looks at Liam suspiciously. "Is it your kidney?" Zayn had said something, vaguely, about Liam being a bit sickly as a kid, and that was why he didn't like doctors now and couldn't give blood ever.

"Er — yes. Sort of. It's complicated," Liam stutters, going a bit tense under Louis's arm. This bears looking into. But not now, because Louis is drunk.

"Fine," he says grandiloquently, "I will allow this. For now. Don't think you're getting out of this just because I like you, Payne."

"You do?" Liam asks, sounding startled. When Louis twists around to peer up at him, he looks startled, too.

"Oh, god," Harry sighs, swigging his terrible green thing like it's a Cosmo.

Louis snorts. "For a reporter, your powers of observation are absolutely terrible," he says, smacking Liam's chest, which really is quite nice. Very firm. He needs to wear better clothes. "You're lucky you're my partner."

"Yeah," Liam says. "I guess I am."

"Oh, _god_ ," Harry repeats. "I'm finding Zayn."

-

Louis doesn't realise that he's not seen Superman for weeks until Harry goes and gets himself rescued. 

"What did you even _need_ to be rescued for?" he demands when Harry comes back all starry-eyed and floppier than usual. "All you do is nob about with celebrities all day! If Niall got rescued, that's one thing —"

"I did get rescued once," Niall says. Louis hates him. Well, no, that's a lie, but Louis strongly contemplates hating him for a moment. Half a moment. "Once and a half? Something like that. Thought I'd mentioned it, but I guess half the city's been rescued by him at some point, not sure it's news anymore."

"Mine was," Harry adds happily. "There was a hostage situation at Kara's party. Two of the party crashers turned out to be evil and they locked the doors after the dessert arrived. One of them said she was Kara's evil twin, but I'm not sure she was actually evil, I think she might've been exaggerating a bit. And then Superman showed up and flew us out. Paul says it's going to be a front page exclusive."

"Sick!" Niall cheers, clapping him on the shoulder. "But why do you have cake in your hair?"

Harry reaches up to pat his hair and gets his fingers stuck in a patch of brownish frosting. "Oh. Well, when Superman came in we tried to distract the bad guys by throwing dessert at them, only it got everywhere." He sticks his fingers in his mouth, looking contemplative. "Mocha. Nice."

Niall wrinkles his nose. "Waste of good cake."

"Yes, but Superman," Louis insists, before Harry can really get started protesting that it was _crime_ , Niall, they sacrificed the cake to stop crime. 

"What about him?" Harry asks. "He's very nice, I see why you like him so much. He liked my joke about hamsters."

Oh god, of course Superman liked Harry's awful jokes. Of course he did. That should really make him less attractive, and yet, unfairly, it does not.

"Yeah, he's great," Niall agrees. "Bit quiet, but flying's ace, isn't it? Oh, hey Liam."

"Hey," Liam says, from where presumably he was trying to sneakily sneak over to his desk. He's got wet hair. Louis's treacherously imaginative brain immediately provides an image of Liam in the bath, which is fairly detailed given how much Louis saw after that trip to the greenhouse landed them both in decontamination showers, and is also something he should be contemplating at a later time. "What's going on?"

"You're late," Louis says, reaching out to pinch his nipple. Liam grabs his hand before he makes it all the way. "You're not supposed to be late, you promised."

"Oh, like you can talk," Liam says, still hanging on to his hand. Louis beams at him.

"Ignore him, he's just jealous his boyfriend rescued Harry and not him," Niall says. Louis seriously considers hating him again, but it's impossible to stay mad at Niall. He's made of sunshine. Anyway, Louis still owes him for the two weeks after his last breakup, when he was totally insufferable and Niall politely put up with him and pretended that he wasn't. Which, admittedly, was a year ago, but Louis was _very_ insufferable. "Also Harry didn't save us any cake."

"I am not jealous!" Louis yells in a totally dignified and slightly startled manner, right over Liam asking, in a very quiet and very startled manner, "Boyfriend?"

"Superman's not my boyfriend," Louis says grumpily. He crosses his arms over his chest without thinking, only Liam's still holding onto his hand and they get twisted up weirdly until Liam lets go, which just makes Louis grumpier. "And I'm not jealous that you needed to be rescued. Clearly Superman has realised that I can take care of myself."

Without meaning to, he glances at Liam, who got trapped in that cave with him. And also on that boat right before it sank. And also in the biscuit factory that's the reason neither of them has been able to look at biscotti for three weeks now.

But they got out alright, didn't they? And not even a little twice-baked or crispy around the edges, which in the case of the biscuit factory was a real feat.

On the other hand, Liam seems like he might place a higher priority on _not_ falling in subterranean caves in the pursuit of truth than Louis does. Or at least seems like he might tell people about the fact that they fell into a subterranean cave in the pursuit of truth. Louis has been strenuously avoiding telling anyone about these little incidents, because he knows Harry is going to be obnoxious about them for the rest of eternity.

"You've seemed alright," Liam says. "That I've seen, at least."

On second thought, Louis doesn't know why he thought Liam would betray him. He's clearly too good of a person for that. Louis made such a good choice in partner.

Louis rewards him by punching him in the arm. "See? Payno knows."

"Unless. Um," Liam says. Louis narrows his eyes suspiciously. "Unless you wanted to be rescued by Superman?"

Louis scoffs. "Don't be ridiculous. I don't need incredibly fit men feeling obligated to blunder in and fly me away from explosions."

"Yes," Niall says, "he does."

"He's got really nice arms," Harry reflects, which is just blatant provocation and Louis is going to call him on it as soon as he stops thinking about Superman's arms.

"Nicer than mine?" Niall asks, flexing.

"Nicer than everyone's. Even Liam's."

Liam has very nice arms. But it's true, there's just something about the blue spandex that really emphasises everything. Liam is blushing a dull, startled red, though, and Louis decides to take pity on him. "Have you ever been rescued by Superman, Payne?"

“What?” Liam asks. “Oh. No. I’ve seen him? I don’t have any opinions about his arms,” he adds a little desperately, which is clearly a lie, since everyone who’s seen Superman has opinions about his arms, but Louis will let it go.

“Well, maybe another time,” Niall tells him cheerfully.

“Just don’t hang out with Louis so much,” Harry says. “Because Superman is avoiding him.”

“He’s not _avoiding_ me, I’m not a _leper_ ,” Louis protests, right as Liam asks, “Wouldn’t it be better if I didn’t need to be rescued?” 

"HA," Louis shouts, pointing at him. "A man after my own heart! This is why you're my favorite."

"I mean, I was a little worried in the biscuit factory —" Liam begins before Louis can wave him to silence. It's too late; Niall and Harry have already heard. They're going to make Liam explain. They're definitely going to tell Zayn and Paul. The biscuit incident is going to make it into the binder of "stupid ways Louis has endangered himself this year," possibly with pictures.

"What do all of you have against dessert?" Niall demands, while Harry prods Liam for more details on their cinnamon-y escapade. But they're not teasing Louis about Superman anymore, so that's alright, at least. As long as Liam doesn't mention the boat thing, because that would _really_ get him in trouble.

-

"Paynoooooo," Louis complains into the phone, "where are you?"

At least Liam is picking up his phone, which is something. Yesterday Louis could barely reach him at _all_ , which was obviously alright because Louis is a master journalist and doesn't need anyone else along when he's busy reporting on pitched superhero-supervillain battles happening in the middle of the city, but was also a bit frustrating given that there was a pitched superhero-supervillain battle happening in the middle of the city. And a little concerning, especially since Louis and Harry and Niall and Zayn were all texting each other every hour to say they were okay, which has been part of their established procedure during a citywide attack for ages now.

And — well, obviously Louis doesn't think Superman would have died yesterday. Superman is probably indestructible. It's one of the things Louis likes so much about him, that he doesn't break. But he... There were a few moments yesterday when it seemed possible, that he might lose. And it might've been nice, to have Liam there. Being an incurable optimist is sort of his thing.

But sometime around three, a little after Superman had finally picked up Dinoman and flown him and his hybrid dinosaur horse out of the city centre, Louis had finally managed to reach Liam, so at least he knew Liam was alive. In an area with absolutely terrible cell reception and apparently unable to answer any of Louis's questions about where he was with anything more specific than, "I can't really talk right now, I'll call you later?" followed by something really loud in the background and the call dropping — but alive and alright, apparently.

It's not like Louis had some stunning moment of relief where he had to lean against a wall for a while in the middle of the afternoon because his legs were too shaky for him to stand on his own, but he did find it easier to breathe for the rest of the day.

Of course he collapsed on the sofa when he got to his flat at about eleven at night, but it had been a very tiring day and he did a lot of walking, so he's allowing himself that one.

But Liam _promised_ him that he'd be at the office today so they could go look at the crash site, or at least Louis had texted him to tell him what they were doing and when they were leaving and Liam had texted back "ok," and now it's been like fifteen minutes and he's still not here.

"What?" Liam asks, yawning, and Louis frowns. "Oh, shit, is it 10 already? I'm so sorry, Louis, I'll be there as soon as possible. Or I can meet you there?"

Louis frowns some more, mostly because Liam sounds a little bit like he dragged himself over some sharp rocks and then shoved gravel down his throat. "Are you sick?" he demands. "You sound terrible."

"I'm alright," Liam insists, which is both pathetically and clearly a lie. "I should get up anyway."

"Absolutely not, don't be an idiot," Louis says.

"But the crash site—"

"Oh, shut up about that, who even asked you? Sit. Stay. Do I need to send someone to check on you to make sure you're in your apartment? Because I will."

"But—"

"I'll send Niall and Josh to the crash site, they'll be alright," Louis says, and then remembers that Liam is a stubborn idiot who needs things smacked into his head and adds, "Paul has very strong feelings about people pushing themselves too hard, Payno, go back to sleep until you're useful to me."

"I'm not—" Liam ties to protest, except he breaks off with a yawn in the middle so that pretty much puts paid to that, then.

"That was an order, Payne," Louis snaps, and hangs up the phone. He stands still for a moment, tapping his phone against his palm and glaring at the pile of papers and notebooks on his desk, before he sweeps them all into his bag and goes to find some soup.

-

Liam looks astonishingly surprised to see Louis in his living room. Possibly because Louis didn't knock first, but that's the point of them all having "just in case" keys to each other's flats, isn't it? 

Liam is wearing low-slung sweatpants and an exhausted old McFly shirt and wow, he looks _terrible_. "Wow," Louis says, "you look _terrible_."

Louis strives to be honest in all situations. Except the inconvenient ones, obviously.

"I —"

"Like, actually dreadful. Possibly dying. Are you sure you're not dying?"

Liam sighs. "I'm not dying. I'll be fine tomorrow."

Right, well, he'll have to excuse Louis for not believing him, since he sounds like he threw himself into the washing machine and let it bash him around for an hour. "Right," Louis says, in a mostly-successful attempt at being tactful and only a little bit sarcastic. Maybe more than a little bit sarcastic. "Shut up and sit down. I brought you soup."

Liam blinks at him, like he completely hasn't noticed the giant Tesco's bags Louis is holding. "What?"

"Did I not just tell you not to talk?" Louis demands. He points to the couch and Liam actually goes, because he's well-trained, which is good because that means he can stop looking at Louis like that and leave Louis to heat up the soup. "And wrap yourself up in some blankets. Do you even know how to take care of yourself at all?"

"I'm an adult, Louis," Liam protests, and Louis yells from the kitchen, "I didn't say you could talk yet!"

Later, once Liam has eaten two bowls of chicken noodle soup — completely without Louis's prompting on the second one, because he clearly realised that Louis was right about him needing it, because Louis is always right — and is curled up peacefully under two blankets on the sofa, he says, "Thanks. I mean — you didn't have to come over."

"You're my partner, Liam," Louis says, focusing very intently on the crap reality show he put on earlier as low-pressure thinking-not-required background noise. Liam should just _know_ this, except apparently he doesn't, so Louis will just tell him and then Liam can stop looking at him with those terrible sincere puppy eyes. "Don't be stupid."

He dares a look over. The puppy eyes are still out in force.

"Anyway, my mum's a nurse, she'd never forgive me," he adds as distraction. It works, in a sense; the eyes are still there, but at least this time they're for his mum, and Louis is okay with people getting sincere and sappy about how great his mum is.

"She sounds great," Liam says, with a little smile. "Her and your sisters."

"They're the best," Louis says, and they are, which is why he talks about them all the time. "Except when they're monsters, obviously." He tilts his head to the side, looking at Liam from all the way down on the other side of the sofa. "What about yours?"

Liam talks about his family some. He does it most often with Zayn, presumably because Zayn has actually met his parents and can actually follow along on all the gossip, but Louis knows the basics. Two older sisters, parents still married, grew up in a tiny little town with nothing noteworthy about it except its unusually high rate of property damage and teenage miscreants.

"They're great," Liam says, and smiles wider, with little crinkles starting to form around his eyes. "They're the greatest."

"Are they a lot like you?" Louis asks, trying to imagine male and female older versions of Liam, people with his smile and energy, maybe with permanent laugh lines where his smile crinkles are. Or maybe focused like he gets, the people who taught him how to worry and follow the rules.

"I guess," Liam says, and his smile fade when he bites his lip. "People say, I mean, but I'm not — I'm adopted. So I guess — I don't know how much like my real parents I am."

"They are your real parents," Louis snaps. It's harsher than he intends, but the uncertain look on Liam's face is hitting the parts of him that he usually tries not to think about much. Somewhere inside his brain he's still fourteen and fucked up over the guy who had a son and then fucked off with barely a second glance. That was the year he punched someone in the face for saying that Mark didn't count as his dad, and then came home and yelled at everyone until his mom came to his room and leaned her head against his and talked to him for a while about stupid things.

He takes a breath and starts again, because Liam is poorly and Louis _isn't_ fourteen anymore. "Look. My stepdads are my parents too, right? So like. If you think they're your parents, they're your parents. It doesn't have to matter whose actual biology you have, if you don't want."

Liam's not looking sappy anymore. He's not even looking at Louis anymore; his face is turned to the screen but the rest of him seems very far away. Galaxies worth of far away, even.

"It matters a little," Liam says.

Louis thinks of the way he still cares about it sometimes, no matter how many times he tells himself to stop. All the times in high school when he worried he was going to grow up to be just like his less-good dad. "Yeah," he says, and sighs as quietly as possible. "Maybe a little."

"I just want to know if they'd be proud of me," Liam says. His cheek is propped on his hand. Louis moves the blankets so they're covering his feet.

"Course they would be," Louis says, and takes the opportunity to tug at Liam's toes just because he can. The fact that it makes Liam smile is really just a side benefit. "You're working with a fabulous, award-winning reporter, aren't you?" If Liam's birth parents wouldn't be proud of him right now, they wouldn't deserve him anyway.

"Yeah," Liam says, "guess you're right," and he's got a soft little smile on his face that Louis doesn't even try to ignore.

"I'm always right," he says, because he didn't get where he is today by letting someone else have the last word, and lets his feet creep under Liam's blanket.

-

The question comes up eventually. Louis knew it would. Not even because he has excellent journalistic powers of observation and prediction, just because it was inevitable.

"Why’d you call him Superman, anyway?" Liam asks, gentle in the pale light. He settles in on his side, as if he's totally comfortable on the concrete rooftop and doesn't even care that he had to drag himself out of bed before dawn in order to get a better look at weird sky phenomena. He didn't even _complain_.

He should have complained. Louis doesn't know why he didn't.

"Dunno," Louis says, huddling further into his coat. It’s chilly, in that damp, pre-dawn sort of way, because it is damp and pre-dawn, because Louis is a masochist. First case in point: deciding to write about weird lights in the sky that only appear before 5 in the morning. Second case in point: not nipping this conversation in the bud. Then again, Louis's been interrogated about Superman by veteran reporters and terrifying fans and gossipy younger sisters, and Liam’s not like any of them. Liam's not like most people Louis knows. “He’s pretty super, isn’t he? Flying and extra strength and all that.”

Louis has only met Superman professionally, but they're friendly, and all that. Superman is a good person, if he really is a person. Obviously Louis is going to write about him in the news, because he wouldn't be any kind of journalist if he didn't, but he doesn't want to... exploit anything. Maybe it's silly to feel protective of someone who can probably crush cars with his abdominal muscles, but being invulnerable to bullets doesn't make you invulnerable to assholes.

He really should have rethought the Superman name, though, because dear god could he _sound_ any more like a besotted teenager?

"But it’s not as if he’s better than everyone else," Liam says, sounding tired and a little sad and not at all like the anti-fans Louis’s met, too, the ones who send hate mail or stop Louis on the street as if he’ll pass on the message personally. _Oh, yeah, next time Superman’s dragging people out of burning buildings I’ll be sure to stop and tell him that you think he’s a prick._

"It’s just a name," Louis says, even if that’s not entirely true, and Liam hums.

"Bet his friends give him shit for it," Liam says finally, smiling a little.

Louis raises his eyebrows and looks over, instead of at the skyline they’re supposed to be watching while the sun rises. He can’t help it; Liam’s got a nice face. “You think he’s got friends?”

"Well, yeah," Liam says, frowning. "Everyone’s got friends, don’t they?"

Louis can’t say he’d thought of it quite like that. “But like, you think he lives here? He doesn’t have some sort of secret hero lair where he sleeps until he hears someone shouting for help?”

Or until Louis is coincidentally wandering around by the docks while someone else is getting mugged. Whichever.

Liam hesitates, looking back over the rooftops. “Maybe. That could be it.”

"No, that’s not what you were thinking. Come on," Louis insists. He’s quite good at getting people to spill the beans; it came in handy when he needed to find out which of his sisters broke their mum’s vase, or whether someone he’s talking to could become an anonymous source. Liam can’t be any harder to crack than that, he's a terrible liar.

"There’s just all these crimes going on all the time that he’s not there for," Liam says after a moment. "If all he had to do was sleep in his secret hero lair, wouldn’t he be working more of the time?"

"Maybe he needs a lot of sleep," Louis says, scooting closer to Liam because it’s cold and Liam’s always warm and that’s as much of an excuse as Louis needs. "Or maybe he just wants to solve a few crimes a day because he thinks people will get bored of him."

"Maybe." They’re close enough now that Louis can feel Liam shrug. "But if you could do all that, wouldn’t you want to help as many people as possible?"

Louis isn’t sure how he ended up with so many idealists; first Superman and his biceps and smile and penchant for rescuing Louis from stupid situations, and now Liam with his dorky glasses and his sincerity. Louis doesn't know why he doesn't want to punch either one of them at all.

"Have you ever considered getting contacts?" he asks as Liam rubs his eyes beneath his glasses, and Liam freezes. They’re pressed together; Louis can feel it.

"Er," Liam says, "no."

-

Louis kisses Liam on an unspectacular Thursday. Otherwise unspectacular, at least; the kiss is pretty nice, when it happens, but most of the day is grim and rainy and there's no interesting crime going on at _all_. Plus, Doncaster's just lost another match, which is always a good way for the universe to kick Louis when he’s down.

So naturally, Louis drags everyone out after work. He even lets Harry bring Nick, even though Nick has committed the terrible triple crime of being A) a twat, B) tall, and C) a radio person, of all things.

"You like his show," Liam points out when they're all snugged up around a table, freakishly long Grimshaw legs and all. "I've heard you listen to it."

"Gathering ammunition," Louis mutters.

He can’t complain too much, though — or he could, but he can’t be arsed right now. A miserable day has turned into a decent evening; he's got his legs over Zayn's lap and his back against Liam's chest, and his friends are here and they're warm and dry and slightly drunk.

After a few hours they’re more than slightly drunk, but everyone is still there and warm and dry, so Louis is still going to count that as a win. Maybe more than a win, even. Like, a 150% win.

"Christ, you're pissed," Niall laughs when he says this. "How can you even have more than one hundred percent of a win? None of you reporters can do maths, swear to god."

Louis snorts. "Maths are what editors are for," he says. Although Zayn is terrible at maths, really, but it’s still his job more than Louis’s. "Like Zayn. Where is Zayn? Did he disappear again?"

"Well, he was going to the toilets but I think he got kidnapped," Harry says thoughtfully. He nods at the dance floor. Zayn is there, dancing with someone Louis can't see beyond a few flashes of blonde hair. Well, that’s alright then. Good on him, getting out there.

"I taught him everything he knows, you know," Louis says, with a warm glow of pride in his chest. Or maybe that’s the alcohol. Probably both.

Niall snorts. "I'm pretty sure Zayn could pull before you met him, Lou. He just has to stand there and look at someone."

Louis kicks at him, but lazily, because he can't be arsed and if he actually hurt Niall he'd be forced to kill himself. "I meant dancing, you donut."

"You did not," Liam says. "I did."

"You did not!" Louis insists.

"Yes I did! Taught him how to dance in college, didn't I?"

"Clearly you didn't, because he was rubbish when we met him," Louis says, but he twists Liam's nipple so Liam knows he doesn't really mean it.

"Maybe you're just a bad judge of dancing," Liam says. It's like, an itty-bitty baby scoff. Louis is so proud of him. Proud and horrifically offended, obviously.

"I am horrifically offended," he says, in case Liam doesn't get the point from his _horrifically offended_ face. He sighs as loudly as he possibly can, wobbling up onto his feet and reaching down to drag Liam up. “Guess you’re not getting out of it now.”

“What?” Liam asks, laughing.

“Got to avenge my honor, don’t I?” Louis asks. He’s deadly serious but he might be ruining it by giggling a bit. “Come on, up you go, time to dance.”

He finally yanks Liam upright and overbalances in the next second. Liam reaches out to grab his shoulder, keeping him steady and also not on the floor, because Liam is great. “Think it might be time for some water first,” Liam says, and gently folds Louis back into his chair. “Stay here, I’ll be back in a sec.”

"You better," Louis says, and then gets distracted by Niall's story of photographing a charity golf tournament and making lots of large men fall in love with him. That's not how he phrases it, obviously, but Louis can read the subtext here. Niall is like catnip to large sporty men.

Which is why, anyway, it takes him so long to realise that it's been much longer than a second and Liam isn't back yet.

"Has Liam wandered off again?" he demands. "I thought we cured him of that. Do we need to get a leash for him?"

"Think he's a little busy, love," Nick says, sounding all secretly laugh-y. Louis would know, Louis has like three different secret laugh voices. "But if you want to get him a leash, who am I to judge your kinks?"

Louis kicks him and regrets nothing.

Niall, all twisted around and staring past Louis, whistles. "Okay, lads, bets that Liam's leaving with us tonight?"

Louis is about to say that of course Liam will be leaving with them, Liam _always_ leaves with them except for those nights when he gets fidgety and has to go leave early and call his mum, but then he cranes his head around and sees what Niall means. Liam is stood at the at the bar with Louis's water, talking to someone. Someone who's leaning in towards him a lot and keeps touching his arm and laughing.

"He's fit," Harry says approvingly.

Louis scoffs. "Yeah, if you like that sort of thing."

"What, like, tall, handsome, muscular, nice hair—"

"His hair isn't _that_ nice," Louis protests, because it isn't, it's just sort of vertical and quiffy. Louis could have a quiff if he wanted, he only doesn't because it's a bloody pain to do up every morning and he has better things to do. What a prick. "I should—"

"No," three voices at the table chorus, and Niall's arm is around his shoulders pressing him down before he can even really start standing up.

"Nobody likes a cockblock, Louis," Niall says in a voice that's probably supposed to sound wise. 

"He has my water," Louis says, and Harry immediately slides Nick's half-full water glass over to him. "Harold! It's probably got, like, radio cooties."

Harry smiles smugly. "Hasn't hurt me so far."

"Ugh, gross," Louis says, and then adds uncharitably, "Stop smiling like that, you look like a frog."

"A good-looking frog," Nick tells Harry, kissing his temple, and Harry dimples at him.

"Would you kiss me and turn me back into a prince?" Harry asks.

This is _terrible_. Liam is being flirted with by some hideously forward person who's feeling up his biceps and Louis is stuck here watching Harry and and Nick be cloying at each other instead of rescuing him.

Louis gags as loudly as possible. "Niall, they're disgusting, let me up so I can be sick in the toilets."

"Nice try," Niall says, patting his back.

"Nice try what?" Liam asks from behind them. "Louis, are you feeling ill?"

Louis tries to spin around in his chair and ends up smacking his face into Niall's. "Ugh. No. Sit down, you're too tall up there."

"What about tall, dark, and handsome?" Nick asks, raising his eyebrows. Liam settles down next to Louis and Louis immediately twines their ankles together. “Too boring? Or are you strictly ladies-only?”

Liam blinks at him. Liam, Louis thinks bitterly, is not aware of the fact that he is disastrously attractive. If he were he would probably use that power for evil, or at least for making Louis do all sorts of things he doesn’t want to do, like go to sleep at a regular time or stop making sarcastic comments at the police. “What, Rob?” Liam asks. “He thought he'd met me at some art thing, we were just chatting for a bit.”

Nick rests his cheek on his hand, looking like Liam is the most fascinating person he's ever met. "Did you grow up on a farm?"

Liam laughs his confused-but-willing-to-play-along laugh. It's very familiar, he used it a lot around Harry when they first met. "Er, Wolverhampton, actually."

"He was hitting on you, mate," Niall interrupts. "Like. Pretty obviously."

"Who was hitting on Liam?" Zayn asks, sliding back into the booth with a phone number written on his hand and a hickey on his neck.

"Pretty boy at the bar in the red shirt," Nick says.

"He's not that pretty," Louis hisses, right as Liam laughs again and says, "He wasn't hitting on me, I'm not _that_ thick."

"Yeah, Liam never notices when someone's hitting on him," Zayn says, shrugging. "Dunno why, mate, we're not in school anymore, you're pretty fit and people aren't idiots." He grins at Liam. "Maybe not, like, _Superman_ fit, but..."

"Yeah, but nobody is Superman fit, it'd be like comparing someone to you," Nick tells Zayn. He’s not wrong about the Zayn bit, anyway. At least, Louis doesn't feel the urge to kick him, which is really high praise.

"Except Superman probably doesn't snore," Louis mutters. "And Liam is plenty fit, anyway."

Liam shrugs, looking uncomfortable, and the less-drunk part of Louis thinks that maybe Liam never got over feeling awkward and bullied and out of place in his small town, like he didn't belong. The more-drunk part of Louis mostly just wants to hit everyone who made Liam sad.

"We should dance," he says loudly. "We're dancing now. Ignore what's his face, he was probably boring anyway, come on."

He chugs his water and then has to stop and cough for a second when he goes a bit too quick. Liam laughs at him, distracted, so that's a win in any case.

-

That's obviously not when Louis kisses Liam, but it’s setting the scene. Explaining the ambiance. Elaborating on context. Whatever. He doesn’t kiss Liam when they’re dancing, either; he isn’t even thinking about it when they’re dancing, is mostly just being demonstratively ridiculous at Liam and occasionally smirking at Tall Dark and Boring over Liam’s shoulder. He grinds against Liam once or twice, but he breaks away again and laughs every time, and Liam puts his hands on Louis’s hips and laughs too.

But they go home. Liam drags Louis home because he’s sober like a terrible person and Louis isn’t, apparently, and that somehow means he needs someone to make sure he gets home and tuck him into bed and put a glass of water and some paracetamol on his nightstand where Louis probably won't knock them over in the middle of the night. 

“Alright,” Liam says finally, looking around like he thinks maybe there's something else he needs to be doing and he’ll figure it out if he just looks at Louis’s curtains one more time. He won't. Louis’s curtains aren't at all inspiring, this is why Louis never works from home. “Is there… do you need anything else?”

Louis reaches up to pat his cheek. What with the alcohol and everything it takes him a moment to calibrate the force of his pats and it's possible the first few feel a bit more like slaps, and then he overcorrects and basically just ends up tapping Liam’s cheekbone. Whatever, it’ll even out in the end. 

“You took very good care of me,” Louis says, except it doesn't come out quite as condescending as he means it to. And then he's just stood there with his hand on Liam’s cheek, being sincere.

“Alright,” Liam says again, hesitating. “I guess I’ll head home, then.”

He shifts back into his heels. Louis’s hand slips onto Liam’s chest, and it just makes sense to grab Liam’s shirt, because if he doesn't then his hand will fall, right? That's just logic.

“Louis,” Liam says, his voice doing this thing Louis doesn't really want to interrogate right now, where it's like he's waiting to see if something's a joke or not.

“Don't,” Louis says, and pushes up onto his toes to kiss Liam.

It’s quick; their lips barely touch before he pulls back, still on his toes. Liam's eyes are very big. 

“Hey,” Louis says. They're so close still that their noses are almost brushing. He's swaying a little on his toes, and he grabs Liam’s shoulder almost automatically for balance. Liam’s hand comes up to settle on his waist, steady, just like when they were dancing earlier.

“Hey,” Louis says again, and when Liam stops looking quite so startled, Louis leans forward and kisses him again.

It lasts longer this time. Louis’s hand moves from Liam’s shoulder to the back of his neck, and he presses forward, trying to close the space left between them. After a moment, Liam lets him. Better: Liam actually kisses _back_ , just barely, tilting his head to the side and opening his mouth to let Louis in.

And it's so — nice. Not very passionate, admittedly, more of a good night kiss than a “yeah, it's _going_ to be a good night” kiss, but really, really nice. Comfortable. Maybe the nicest first kiss Louis has ever had. Louis is a bit drunk and a bit sleepy, and he thinks he could probably stay here and do this for a very long time.

Except maybe they could move it to the couch in that case, because standing on his toes like this is hell on his calves.

He pauses the slow slide of their lips in order to breathe and then has to drop back down a few inches. “Have you ever tried being less tall?” he asks, but he can't muster up enough energy to really seem vexed about it.

Liam doesn't laugh, but he does smile with more than half of his mouth. “You should go to sleep,” he says.

Louis is about to disagree, and then he yawns. Betrayed by his own body, this is so typical. “You should stay,” he says instead. “On the couch or something. It's late.”

“I’ll be alright,” Liam says, and this time he takes advantage of the fact that Louis’s hand has loosened on his shirt and backs away for real. “I’ll see you in the office tomorrow.”

Louis grumbles his disapproval, but it's been a long day and sleep is starting to seem more appealing than a debate. Which, honestly, is the real sign that he's drunk too much tonight.

“Fine,” he concedes, and yawns again. “We’ve got the — thing, anyway. Interview thing. Thingy.”

“Mrs. Reisman,” Liam says, and Louis nods.

He leans against the wall to watch Liam walk away. It seems sensible. “Hey Liam?” he says before Liam reaches the door. Liam turns. “I like you better than Superman.”

Liam trips backwards and slams his back on the door. Louis snickers a little because it didn't look like it hurt much and he's not always a very nice person. 

“Um,” Liam says. “That’s — thanks. Um. That is — good night, Louis,” and then the door is closing behind him.

He's such a weirdo, Louis thinks fondly, and then yawns again and goes to go pass out.

-

When he wakes up in the morning he's got a weird little swish in his stomach that eventually turns out to have less to do with the hangover than it has to do with the fact that he kissed Liam last night. Granted, the hangover doesn’t help. Also neither does the fact that he was supposed to be in the office approximately half an hour ago.

It had just seemed so simple last night. He liked Liam, Liam liked him, Liam was ridiculously fit, Louis didn’t want any more large handsome men hitting on Liam in bars. He already spends all his time with Liam anyway; what’s one more thing?

Except the cold light of sobriety makes him remember all sorts of things, like every single one of his exes. Even in the relationships that ended alright, without any yelling or throwing things or attempted vegetable homicide, things still ended up weird, after. 

Liam's… important. Liam's the sort of important where Louis really can't fuck this up. 

It's just, now that Louis’s kissed him, he _really_ wants to do it again.

But it's fine! Absolutely fine. Louis is the finest. He can make the smart choice, because he's a mature and sensible human being who values his friendships and doesn't want to fuck up one of his best working relationships. 

Unless not dating Liam also fucks things up. What if Liam likes him but thinks that Louis was just drunk and doesn't like him back, and then he gets sad and _that_ makes things awkward? It's happened to Louis before. Liam might think that he had to stop working with Louis because it was too uncomfortable to be with someone who didn't want him back.

But then again, maybe Liam was just humouring Louis last night with that kiss, and he won't want to work with Louis if he thinks it’ll happen again. There's really no good answer here; he’ll just have to wait for Liam to bring it up, and see where they go from there.

Except that Liam doesn't bring it up.

Louis waits for _hours_ , hangover and everything. He tries to hint at it three times and Liam just goes on like everything is normal and Louis didn't kiss him last night. Or like he didn't kiss back. Louis is pretty sure he didn't imagine Liam kissing back.

He's a little offended, honestly. Does Liam think he doesn't remember it? He wasn't _that_ pissed. And anyway, Liam is appallingly memorable.

But fine, if Liam wants to ignore it, that's all right. He probably has reasons. Louis will let it go.

Except then they're walking back from their interview with Mrs. Reisman and Louis blurts out, “So, we kissed last night.”

Look, he's a reporter. He can't be expected to control his truth-seeking instincts.

Liam stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk. Louis puts a hand on his back and uses it to propel him onwards. “Come along, Payne, it's cold and you're going to get run over.”

“Er,” Liam says, but at least he’s moving. 

“Twice,” Louis adds helpfully.

“What?”

“We kissed twice. The first one was pretty short but I think it still counts.”

“Um,” Liam says. He's really cycling through the monosyllables at this point. “Yes?”

“So you do remember,” Louis says.

“Of course I remember,” Liam says. “I thought — you didn't say anything!”

“I was waiting for you to say something, you donut,” Louis says like it’s obvious, because it should be. “You're the one who left last night.”

“You're the one who was drunk,” Liam says, hunching his shoulders in. Louis prods him repeatedly in the back until he straightens out a bit. 

“So you wouldn't have kissed me back if I were sober?” Louis asks. He thinks he does a good job on keeping his voice neutral instead of any other stupid feelings. He's just… asking questions. Journalistically. Getting the lay of the land. 

“What? No,” Liam says. “Wait, yes? I don't know.”

“Yes, you would have kissed me, or no you wouldn't have kissed me?” Louis presses, and hopes that Liam doesn't ask him if Louis _does_ want to kiss him while they’re sober, even if the answer is probably pretty obvious at this point. 

“I shouldn’t really date right now,” Liam says, a little desperately, which answers absolutely none of Louis’s questions whatsoever. He wonder if this “shouldn't” date thing is kind of like how Liam “can’t” get drunk. “There are things about me you don't know.”

They pause in the lobby of the Directioner building, stalled in a corner. Louis blinks up at Liam. “So?”

Liam doesn't appear to have an answer for that.

“I mean, you can tell me, obviously, or else you can just tell me tiny details and I'll find out the rest on my own, but who cares?” Louis asks. Is this really Liam’s only objection? “There's things about me you don't know. I'm pretty sure there's things about Niall that nobody knows, he's a sneaky bastard.”

Liam still doesn't say anything, just sort of stares at Louis with this expression that Louis can't read. It's unnerving, a little; Louis had thought he was fluent in Liam, by this point.

“You haven't murdered anyone, have you?” he asks, mostly to break the silence but also because hey, probably best to clear the air on that one first off. “Murder might be a little more of a problem. Depends on the murder, I suppose, but I thought I'd get that one out there.”

Liam cracks and laughs a little, more disbelieving than anything else but Louis will still take it. “Did I — no!”

“Okay, well, that's good then. Just thought I should make sure.”

“I just… I don't want to mess this up,” Liam says. “You're my best friend. I don't want to ruin things.”

“Oh,” Louis says, and it — he wants to promise that Liam won't, that Louis won't let him, but he can’t promise that, can he? “Me neither.”

“Yeah,” Liam says, and then they just stand there for a bit.

Eventually Louis says, “If our friendship starts getting ruined anyway don't think you're getting out of this, though,” and Liam laughs, and they'll probably be okay for a while.

-

They are absolutely okay and definitely not kissing for four days of completely appropriate and platonic behavior. Louis probably deserves some sort of award for how platonic and non-weird he's being. He's barely even complained to anyone.

He does occasionally find himself wishing that he'd been able to try kissing Liam when he was sober, but that seems like a dangerous path to go down. Pun not intended. Plus he doesn't even ask Zayn if he knows what Liam’s mysterious secret is, which is really impressive, because Louis is drawn to secrets like specially-trained pigs in France are drawn to truffles.

He has to distract himself with other people’s secrets instead, which is why he drags Liam up to the 27th floor of the Syco building. Cowell is good at stonewalling, but that doesn't mean Louis can’t poke around.

“Louis, I don't think we should be here,” Liam says quietly when Louis is helping himself to some coffee in the break room. 

Louis wrinkles his nose. “What's your deal with Syco, Payne? I swear you get antsier every time we deal with them.”

“It's not that,” Liam says. He keeps pacing and darting glances into the offices like he thinks someone’s coming for them, though, so Louis has no idea what _else_ it could be about. “I just have… a bad feeling. A really bad feeling.”

And, because the universe loves a bit of conveniently-timed drama, everything immediately falls apart. Really falls apart. Louis isn't opposed to a good metaphor, but this is — the floor shakes, the walls start crumbling, a pipe breaks somewhere and starts spraying water. Chips of plaster are falling from the ceiling.

“Oh, shit,” Louis says, looking over at Liam so they can make a dash for a doorway or the emergency stairs or _something_ , except Liam’s paced his way to the other side of the break room and the ceiling collapses right between them.

Louis ducks under a table to avoid the worst of the ceiling chunks, but the dust is thick in the air and he can't see anything beyond the rubble. “Payne?” he shouts over, and then a little louder, “Liam!”

He takes a breath to shout again and has to stop to cough out the plaster dust. The floor is making some hideous groaning noises, and Louis barely has time to jump back before a giant crack opens up, and then the floor splits open.

“Liam!” he screams. There's a distant roar outside and the chaos of a thousand people in a skyscraper panicking all at once, fire alarms, sirens from 27 floors down. It's hard to shout over, but Liam has pretty good hearing and Louis is loud, anyway, it's one of his best qualities, if anyone can hear anyone Liam should hear him. “LIAM!”

The hole is big, but if he uses the table as a bridge maybe he can jump it, Liam might just be hidden underneath some bits of the ceiling, maybe he got hit on the head —

He only noticed the whooshing sound when Superman’s got him outside the building.

“No!” he shouts, smacking Superman on the chest and kicking to try to get back inside. “Liam’s in there, you left Liam in there, I have to find him —”

“I'll find him,” Superman says, soaring down to set Louis down in the park across the street. The sidewalk is already swarming with emergency personnel standing a wary distance away from the collapsing building where Liam still is. “You have to stay here, Louis, _promise_ me, it's not safe, he’ll be fine.”

Superman lets go of Louis and flies off before Louis can even yell that Superman doesn't _know that_ , there's hundreds of people in that building—

But he's off. He really is faster than a speeding bullet. Faster than a screaming bullet, even. But he has to find Liam; Louis will never forgive him if he doesn’t.

Louis rolls up his sleeves, tucks his tie into his pocket, and goes to see how he can help the emergency services people.

It turns out the best thing he can do is go bother people. Every few minutes or so, a new group of people is dropped off nearby. They’re usually a little singed and bruised, and sometimes unconscious. The awake ones all have the shell shocked look of someone who's been rescued by Superman at full speed. Louis goes and accosts all of them until he's got a full list of everyone who's there and a tentative list of some of the people who are still missing. It's not complete, but most people know the people who work across from them, and they like being able to look at a list and see all the names that have been checked off.

The longer it takes someone to get checked off, the more likely they are to be injured. Louis can't help but notice.

The Syco building is 50 stories tall, and has everything from business and marketing offices to tech developers and science labs that are apparently in the basement. Nobody seems to know what’s happened, or even if it was an accident or an attack. Louis’s texted the others and asked them to start looking into it from where they are. They can get access to zoning maps, maybe, to see if there was any construction or access to the foundations of the building. Harry and Niall responded almost immediately. Zayn hasn't, but he was halfway across Metropolis last Louis checked, so he's probably alright.

The flow of dazed rescuees slows down. Louis’s list of question marks gets smaller and smaller, until there's only a handful of names left. The shaking’s slowing down, too, so they can't even feel the vibrations under their feet anymore. Louis isn't entirely surprised when Superman leaves one last armful of people with the paramedics and takes a breather by the firefighters and rescue team.

“—no signs of heat anywhere, and I checked on x-ray and didn't see anyone left,” he's saying when Louis starts picking his way over, trying not to bang into any of the million pieces of equipment lying around. “I'm going to do another flyaround, make sure nothing’s falling off the outside that might hit anyone.”

He sees Louis coming and his face tenses, but a second later he's hovering nearby. “He’s okay,” Superman says, before Louis can say anything. “He is, I promise, he wanted to go check on —”

Someone screams. Louis and Superman both spin around to look, but the screamer shouts, “It’s happening again,” and everyone spins in the opposite direction.

There’s a cloud of dust rising in the distance.

Superman narrows his eyes, focusing. “It's the Directioner building,” he says after a moment, sounding horrified, and then there's a rush of air by Louis’s face and he's gone.

-

By the time Louis manages to get a cab to take him to the Directioner building, he’s late to the party — the earthquake party, at least — and very sure that Liam is nowhere in the vicinity of the Syco building. Which is most of why Louis is late to the party, really. That, and before he left he made sure to give very vehement instructions to everyone who seemed like they were going to be sticking around, just in case they found a tall bloke with glasses and a broken phone and possibly amnesia. 

“—and I swear, your phone had better be broken, because if you're just ignoring my calls I am going to _kill you_ ,” he says, paying the cabbie. It's his fifth voicemail. He's getting really tired of Liam’s stupid perky answering machine message. “You’re not allowed to be hurt, we haven't finished writing that article about the new construction yet. I'm at the Directioner building now, so come meet me or just call me, for god’s sake.”

He hangs up and strides through the crowd, which is dwindling now that the building is done shaking and the people who don’t need medical help can wander off. Harry’s still there, though, standing in one of the non-emergency zones. That's the nice thing about having gangly friends; they’re easy to spot in a crowd. Niall’s next to him, wrapped in an orange blanket with a bandage on his forehead.

They see him coming, but nobody bothers with pleasantries. “Niall, are you alright?” Louis demands, right as Niall says, “Zayn’s gone.”

Half a second later, Niall says, “I'm fine, just a scratch,” right as Louis says, “Liam’s gone too, what do you mean Zayn’s gone?”

“He means, gone,” Harry says. “We were getting tea on the first floor and then the building started shaking and we thought maybe we should get outside just in case? So we were all headed to the door and he was right behind me and then Susan from Legal says he disappeared into thin air.”

“What, like, teleportation?” Louis asks. It sounds outlandish until you remember they’ve had a flying man in underpants hanging around their city for like a year. Only last week there was some villain whose entire gimmick involved stilts. It's a weird world these days.

“Maybe,” Niall says. “Got to be someone else if it was, though, because if Zayn could teleport there’s no way he would take the bus in the mornings.”

“And what do you mean, Liam’s gone?” Harry asks. “You said in your text Superman said he was fine.”

Louis glowers at nothing in particular. In this case that turns out to be a few technicians setting up something metal and incomprehensible. “Superman did say he was fine, except then Superman left and I still couldn't find him.” And he tried. He tried until his voice was hoarse and the disaster relief people pulled him away on the excuse that the area was “dangerous” and “unstable.” “So either Superman lied or something happened afterwards, and I don't like that there were a bunch of scientists missing from the Syco building, either. Where is Superman, anyway?”

“He heard about Zayn and flew off,” Harry says. “And then another building started going, so I don't know where he is.”

Figures. Louis glowers at even more of nothing in particular. 

Why would anybody kidnap Zayn or Liam? It can't have been something they published, or Louis would’ve been grabbed too. They did grow up together, so maybe that had something to do with it, except Zayn and Liam always insist that nothing interesting happened to them at all when they were kids besides the unusually high levels of property damage and teenage misdemeanors in Wolverhampton. And how would the scientists fit into that, anyway? If the scientists are even connected, that is.

“So what are we meant to do, just… wait?” he demands. “We have no idea where Zayn and Liam are, we have no idea who’s making buildings shake or why or how, we have —”

He pauses, and then pivots to look thoughtfully at the Syco building.

“Oh no,” Niall says quietly, and then yells more loudly, “Paul!”

“What are you doing that for?” Louis demands, not as waspishly as he would if he were really giving it his full attention. If everybody’s still there — or would they have gone to the hospital? Impossible to find anyone at the hospital, it's going to be a madhouse, but…

“Louis, look at yourself, you're limping and your hands are all scratched up,” Harry says.

“You're an idiot,” Niall says more bluntly. “And look, I'm really sure that Superman is going to make sure Zayn and Liam are okay. _Really_ sure.”

“Superman’s not always going to be there,” Louis says, still peering off into the distance. Liam said that to him. Superman doesn't know everything, and he can't be everywhere at once.

Louis doesn't know everything either, but he's usually got some pretty good ways to find out.

“Paul, Liam's gone too and Louis has his bad idea face on,” Harry says somewhere behind him, and Louis whips around to frown at all of them.

“Interviews,” he says. “We can interview all of the scientists at Syco about the missing scientists, and see if they have anything to do with Liam and Zayn.”

Paul is looking down at him, not looking like he approves but not necessarily looking like he disapproves, either. Paul’s got to be a mess inside, under quite frankly terribly intimidating exterior. He takes it personally whenever any of them are in danger. Louis just doesn't usually see it from this side of the action.

“It's just interviews,” Louis says. He's not begging. He doesn't _beg_. It's just maybe his voice sounds a little more desperate than he means it to. “Just interviews, I promise, I'm not going to go run into a collapsing building or stir anything up, it's just talking.”

“You can cause a lot of trouble by just talking,” Paul says. He waits just long enough that Louis’s started planning a mutiny in his head before he says, “Alright. I'm coming with you. Niall, Harry?”

Niall and Harry are already nodding by the time Louis works up the voice to say, “What? You don't have to, I’ll be fine—”

“I'm not letting any more of my staff disappear, and you idiots are the most likely to get into trouble, especially considering that two-fifths of you are missing,” Paul says. He's a marshmallow, Paul is, but when he's really certain about something he's got a voice that tells you exactly how the future is going to be and there's no room for debate. “Paddy and Alberto can corral everyone else. We can't go back inside the building until they've figured out how much structural damage there is, anyway. In the meantime, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“Fine,” Louis says, because when it comes down to brass tacks he's not opposed to having them within arm’s reach. He doesn't want to work alone right now. “We need to find out where the Syco evacuees are.”

-

In the end, it's Niall who cracks it, sorting through the mess of statements they get from the non-missing scientists about the missing scientists’ backgrounds, hometowns, secret affairs, and special projects to pick out the offhand mention of a green rock. It turned up after the Dinoman escapade months ago and some of the missing scientists had been examining it to find out what it was, until it disappeared. The running theory was that it was unstable and had disintegrated, which the scientists didn't seem terribly concerned about. Louis worries about how regularly things disintegrate in the Syco labs.

And because Niall is Niall, he’d put it together with a comment Zayn had made about hating green because of some stupid space rock that a meteor had left all over Wolverhampton years ago.

So that — well, it doesn't make sense at all, honestly, but it makes at least more sense than what they had before, which was mostly a whole mess of question marks. Still a dead end, though, because it turns out that having an idea _why_ they’ve been taken doesn't really say anything about _where_ they’ve been taken.

Louis is about to drag everyone off to go look at it from the other way around, looking for scientific research on earthquake machines or teleportation, when there's a crash from above their heads and Superman comes flying out of the half-finished building at the end of the block. He's holding on to someone, but after a moment Louis can see that it's not Liam; it’s not someone Louis can recognise at all, at least not from a hundred metres away.

A rumbling starts, and then stops again. Superman’s got one hand on the mystery man’s wrist now. The mystery man is struggling, kicking at Superman, which seems like a stupid idea when someone’s holding you twenty stories up in the air, but what does Louis know? And — oh, there they are, mystery man must be trying to teleport away because they disappear and show up closer to the ground, but Superman just flies them up again. Mystery man teleports them across the road, Superman hangs on, only one streetlight gets bent.

“I hope you're taking pictures, Niall,” Louis says, but he can already hear the click of Niall’s camera.

“Lads,” Paul says.

“What,” Louis says. This is getting a bit pathetic, really, whoever Superman’s hanging on to clearly doesn't know how to fight. And by “pathetic,” Louis means “hilarious.” Maybe Superman will finish up quickly so Louis can grab him and demand to know where Zayn and Liam are and why the hell he left Liam alone instead of with Louis.

“Lads,” Paul says, louder. “I think it's Zayn.”

Louis, Harry, and Niall spin around all at once. Harry only barely avoids tripping over his own feet. Sure enough, there's a line of people slowly trickling out of the building Superman bashed out of. All of them are covered in plaster dust except one entirely pristine dark head. 

“Oh, there he is,” Niall says. 

“What, the clean one?” Harry asks.

“Yup, that's gotta be Zayn,” Louis agrees. “How does he _do_ that?”

Paul is already halfway to Zayn. After a second, the three of them all run to catch up. Niall is favoring his knee like usual, Harry’s favoring his foot because he apparently sprained a toe, and Louis is favoring the ankle he twisted when he got dragged away from scrambling over rubble, which makes them a rather ungainly trio. Zayn doesn't seem to care; he breaks away from the crowd and jogs over to them, letting Paul sweep him up in a massive hug. Louis piles in just because he can, and he feels four extra hands eeling in, which means Niall and Harry have made the correct decision on cuddles.

“But wait,” Louis says after a few peaceful moments, his face buried somewhere between Zayn’s shoulder and Paul’s bicep. “Where’s Liam?”

“Liam?” Zayn asks, and then tenses. “Oh. Yeah. Liam's fine.”

“But he wasn't with the rest of you.”

Zayn draws back a little, until there's a few inches of space between all of them. It takes a few seconds, they’re so tangled up. “Um. No. But he's fine, Superman told me.”

Louis growls. “How does Superman _know_? He left him behind three buildings ago!”

“Look, I trust Superman, alright?” Zayn says. Niall looks at him thoughtfully. “He must have run into Liam at some point, you know how Liam is about wandering off. He probably went to go make sure everyone got out of the buildings okay. He'll be fine.”

Louis steps back before he shouts in their faces. “Yeah, thanks, maybe I'd like a little _proof_ that he hasn't tripped into a sinkhole,” he snaps. “And what about the green rock? Did it not have to do with that at all?”

Zayn looks at him, startled. “What?” he asks, and Niall starts cheerfully explaining their findings. 

There are cops finally arriving, Louis notices distantly, and ambulances. He's probably lost his chance to go explore the building where the kidnappees were being kept, but they might want to take Zayn over to the ambulances in case he's in shock or something.

Superman’s handing over the mystery man to the police, stripped of the weird metal things he was carrying. And now Superman’s flying off, probably to go punch more people, destroy the mystery man’s earthquake machine, save more lives. 

“No,” Zayn is saying, “no, you've pretty much got it, but it was — only people who’ve touched the rocks, I think. He wanted to find one, as a power source. Liam’s never touched one.”

“Never touched what?” Liam asks from behind them.

Louis is going to scream. And also kill him. Maybe both at once. “Where the fuck have you _been_?”

Liam, at least, looks a little guilty, and also highly disheveled. This is not going to get him off the hook in the slightest. “Er, my phone broke—”

“So why didn't you have Superman drop you off with everyone else?” Louis demands. “I waited by the Syco building for _ages_ , you never even told me where you were—”

“There were some people on the other side of the building and I wanted to make sure they were alright—”

“So you just go running off without even telling anyone where you are? And don't even tell me that Superman knew where you were because Superman can't keep an eye on you when he's halfway across the city. Anything could have happened, you could have _died_ and we wouldn't know, you giant fucking hypocrite —”

Louis gives up on talking, fists his hands in Liam’s shirt, and drags him down to smash their lips together.

It hurts and their mouths taste a little like dirt, but after that first, surprised second Louis tips his head and slides his hands around to the back of Liam’s neck and all of a sudden it's like things just make sense. Liam's mouth opens and Louis pushes closer, muscling into Liam’s space and licking at Liam’s lower lip, which sounds weird but feels like the best thing that's happened all day.

Liam's arms wrap around Louis, taking some of the weight off where he's balanced on his toes, and he presses in almost as fiercely as Louis.

But then Louis steps wrong and remembers that his ankle is fucked and has to break away to hiss in pain, which is really unfortunate on several levels, because it A) hurts like crap, B) reminds him that his boss and three of his best friends are watching them, C) reminds _Liam_ that his boss and three of his best friends are watching him, and D) leaves Liam looking less kiss-dazed and more worried about Louis’s fragility, which is nice in theory but not really Louis’s top priority right now.

“Erm,” Liam says. “Are you alright?”

“Stupid ankle thing, it's not important,” Louis tries, but it's too late, the moment is lost, Paul is sighing at them and Harry is making weird faces.

“Louis, if you want to go home and stay there, it's fine by me,” Paul says. “But if you do, you need to _rest_ , not go out and chase another story.”

Louis stares at him, aggrieved. “But we’re halfway into this one! We can't just stop now!”

“Then whatever you and Liam are getting up to needs to wait,” Paul tells him firmly. Liam blushes so hard Louis can practically feel the warmth. “And if I think you're hurting your ankle more, you’re going home and I'm sending Alberto with you to make sure you don't move.”

Louis glares at him. It's a long, tormented moment of indecision before he finally, grudgingly says, “Fine. But Liam's still coming with me.”

“Actually,” Liam says, and Louis twists to stare at him in terrible betrayal. He's still got a hand on Liam’s shoulder, more for balance than to feel him up, but it's nice anyway. “I'm going to go take Zayn home?”

Liam sounds hesitant, as he should when he's abandoning Louis _again_. Zayn does look a little rough, though. Probably this is what happens when you get earthquaked and then kidnapped via teleportation so that an overinvested scientist can interrogate you about geology.

Louis sighs. “Ugh. Yeah, alright then.” Liam blinks at him, and Louis narrows his eyes. “But no wandering off.”

“Alright.”

“And no getting hurt.”

“Alright,” Liam says. Zayn snorts. Louis eyes them both.

“And neither of you are allowed to disappear.”

“Alright.”

“And we get to interview Zayn before you go,” Louis insists.

“Yeah, alright, so shut up and interview me already,” Zayn says, and. Well. The faster this gets done, the less time it is until Louis can talk Liam into kissing him again. 

-

Except that’s not quite how it works, because nothing in Louis’s life ever goes according to plan. Chasing down various relevant wackjobs and research takes the rest of the day and some of the night, and it’s late when Paul eventually sends Louis home under pain of death — or at least under pain of sending him out to cover weddings again, which is nearly as bad. Too late to demand that Liam come over, especially if he wants Liam to be in a good enough mood to reconsider the dating thing.

His frankly incredible restraint ends up being pointless, though, because Liam texts him at nearly midnight to ask _can I come overrrrrr_.

 _yeah,_ Louis texts back. He's sat on his sofa anyway, trying to figure out how to get to bed without putting any pressure on his ankle, which _may_ be hurting a little more than he told everyone else. Minor details, really, except for when they're making it impossible to go to bed because he didn't think to bring a crutch to the sofa with him.

After a moment of thought, he adds, _let yourself in_

Five minutes later the knob clicks and turns. Liam must have been nearby, either already on his way to Louis’s or out for a midnight walk, because Louis knows their flats aren't that close. It had better have been the former, not the latter; wandering around by yourself in the middle of the night is dangerous, and Liam might be built like a brick house but he's got that guileless face that's as good as a “I'm a really lovely person, please steal all my money!” sign. 

Now that Louis thinks of it, Liam really ought to stay overnight. Louis should insist on that one. It’s the safest thing to do.

“It’s Liam,” Liam calls out, entirely unnecessarily. 

“I know, you donut,” Louis calls back. “Get in here.”

“I could have been a burglar,” Liam says, stepping into what passes for Louis’s living room. He's had a shower at some point; he's not smudgy anymore, and he's got fresh clothes on. Louis hasn't had a shower because he got home from a hard day of investigative reporting and immediately laid down on the sofa like a flop. A comfortable flop, but not a very clean one. Still not worse than that time in uni when he didn't shower for like two weeks, though.

“Burglars don't usually have keys,” he says, except Liam is already looking at him laid up on the sofa and saying, “Oh no, Louis, what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Louis grumbles, even if, technically, walking around all day on a sprained ankle and only demanding a few piggyback rides probably counts as anything. “The idiot with the earthquake machine did something. Do you know, he thought the green rocks were like alien batteries?”

Liam snorts, and then gives a throat-clearing sort of cough. “Were they?”

“Dunno,” Louis says. “But if aliens exist —” and he's not dismissing the possibility out of hand, because he is an Open-Minded Journalist even if he is an admittedly scornful and judgmental bastard — “then why’d they go around dumping a load of batteries on us? If we’re an alien trash dump you’d think we’d notice.”

“I don't think we are,” Liam says. Too sincere, as always. He starts to sit on the arm chair and Louis rolls his eyes, waving him down to his usual place on the sofa.

“Well, moot point anyway, we can't find any,” Louis says. Liam is too far away for him to lean on, so he shifts and rests his arm along the back of the sofa. “The one in Syco, from Dinoman, apparently poofed out of existence and everyone we called in Wolverhampton says they disappeared years ago. And how come you never told me there was a meteor shower in your town, anyway?”

Liam shifts his shoulders. “It was before I was adopted,” he says. 

This, from the boy who got upset when the city tried to demolish that old theater downtown and gave Louis a mostly inarticulate lecture about the importance of history and memory and whatever? “Yeah, alright.” Louis snorts. “So much for Wolverhampton being boring. I swear you and Zayn just aren't telling me the good stories.”

“Zayn’s leaving,” Liam blurts out, and then flushes and hunches back into the cushions behind him.

Louis takes a moment to process that, and then finds out he can't. “What?”

“It's been, um. Today,” Liam says nonsensically. “He’s going home for a bit — to Bradford, his family moved back to Bradford. So he's going to stay with his family for a month. Maybe two.”

A month? Maybe _two_? “Just because of today?”

“...No. Sort of. Not entirely.” Liam hesitates with his whole body. Louis didn't realise that was possible but it's the only way to describe it, like everything about him has paused and hunched in on itself. “Zayn’s been dealing with some… things like this for a while. He just wants to be somewhere normal for a few months.”

Louis eyes him. “For a while.”

Liam nods.

“As in, before Metropolis?”

Liam hesitates again, which is as good as a yes, really.

“I thought you said you and him didn't have any stories from Wolverhampton,” Louis says, because they _did_ , he’d asked a million times and they’d never even told him about meteors or anything, just tiny stories about school and a more vehement insistence that there was nothing to talk about.

Liam slumps down, pushing into the arm of the sofa and pulling his feet up, his knees bent and half-hiding his face. “You've heard all the good stories already,” he says. “Everything else is... sort of hard to explain.”

It's a weakness. Interviewing people — asking questions — Louis’s old mentor used to describe it as like mining rock. You just need to find exactly the right place to hit, and all those giant boulder barriers crack into pieces. Or something; Louis doesn't really spend a lot of time with rocks, he's not sure how far that analogy extends. 

Maybe it's more like picking a lock, or breaking into a safe, which he's actually done once or twice: you're waiting until you feel the catch. Everything opens from there. 

Louis is good at it, finding people’s weak points and then hitting them. It doesn’t always make him a comfortable person to be around but it’s why he’s got a box of journalism awards sitting on his shelf. Every single journalistic instinct he has is telling him that this is the catch in the lock. Tonight is the catch, Zayn is the catch, and all Louis needs is to twist a little. Louis could ask the right questions to find out all the things from Liam’s past that make him hesitate before answering questions, maybe even find out that secret that might or might not be keeping him from dating Louis. Tonight might be his best chance, before Liam clams up again tomorrow.

Louis is a phenomenal, persistent, and award-winning investigative reporter. But that’s not the only thing he is.

“Alright,” Louis says.

Liam looks at him. “Alright?”

“Well, if he's not comfortable here,” Louis says, and wrinkles his nose. “I don't get it, but — he's my friend. He's our friend. He should be happy. And I _suppose_ it's not unheard of to take a leave of absence after a kidnapping.”

Louis’s priorities aren't everybody’s priorities. Everybody tells him this, usually when he's just gotten out of being held at gunpoint. Superman used to tell him pretty frequently, but Superman flies into exploding buildings so Louis thinks they’re pretty matched in that regard.

“Oh,” Liam says.

Louis looks at him. He looks, weirdly, a little disappointed. “Oh, what?”

“Oh nothing,” Liam says quickly. “You're right, I mean, it’ll be best. Good. It’ll be good.”

Louis narrows his eyes a little more. He knows that it won't actually help him see into Liam’s brain, but he can't help feeling as though it out to. 

“Liam,” Louis says cautiously, because although he is an ace advice-giver, it's usually more in the realm of telling people they're idiots than providing any actual emotional wisdom, “you know it's alright if you’re not happy he’s leaving, right? We’re all going to miss him. If I win another journalism prize and he's not there to let me gloat over him, I'm going to be furious.”

“Yeah, but,” Liam says, and then wrenches that sentence shut. 

Louis goes over the conversation again for surface clues. Wolverhampton. Zayn’s leaving. Liam clearly wants to talk about Zayn leaving but doesn't seem to want to talk about why he wants to talk about Zayn leaving. 

“Is this about your secret thing?” It's not prying if Liam keeps bringing it up, is it? “Does Zayn not know what it is?”

Liam pushes off the sofa and goes to examine Louis’s wall of movies. “Zayn thinks I should tell you.”

“Okay?” Louis says, except Liam doesn't seem like he really wants to follow Zayn’s advice. He tries again with, “So how long has Zayn known?” Still nothing. Louis sighs. “Look, if you don’t want me to ask, just tell me so.”

“And it wouldn't bother you?” Liam asks, his voice coming very close to cracking in the middle. “Not knowing? You _kissed_ me today, Louis, you said we weren’t going to do that—”

“You kissed me back!” Louis protests. “And you could’ve been _dead_ , okay, I thought about it and it was a stupid decision, if you can be three feet away from me and and just vanish for hours I don’t want to be at your fucking _funeral_ and saying, oh, you know, we almost dated but we were worried it might ruin our friendship!”

“I’m not going to — I wasn’t going to die, Louis,” Liam says, turning around.

“You don’t know that!” Louis shouts. “I didn’t know that! What’s the point of being miserable all the time because you won’t kiss me if you’re right next to me and you want to kiss me back?”

“Because I can’t tell you!” Liam says. “Zayn’s the only one here who knows and he’s leaving, and what if you find out and you leave too? Alright?”

“God,” Louis says, feeling terribly restrained because he only says it with about half the disgust that he’s feeling. How the hell does Liam twist things around in his head like this? “Liam. If it’s that bloody important to you, I _don’t care_ what your secret is.”

Liam sighs. “You —”

“No, shut up,” Louis says. “And sit down, if you’re going to be stroppy with me I don’t want to be craning my neck up at you.” 

Liam dutifully perches at the end of the sofa again. Louis rolls his eyes at him.

“First of all, Zayn’s not leaving because of you, you idiot. Zayn’s leaving because he wants to go spend a few months in a city that doesn’t have people on stilts trying to take over the world. I like it when people on stilts are trying to take over the world, because it’s hilarious and also not boring. People in normal cities have to worry about newspapers going out of business, you know.”

“Yes, but —” Liam begins. Louis shushes him and then, for good measure, yanks him closer so that he can slap his hand over Liam’s mouth.

“You’re not allowed to talk until you stop being stupid,” he says. “ _Second_ , I told you, everyone has secrets. Obviously I like finding out secrets, but I like you more, so if you don’t want me digging into yours and it’s not murder and you’re not dying then I won’t do it. There are other secrets out there I can find, yours can’t be that interesting.”

It’ll be tempting, sure, but Louis is well-practiced in ignoring temptation by tempting himself with other things instead. That’s half the reason he got into journalism in the first place; it’s very distracting.

Liam’s stopped trying to talk past the hand Louis has over his mouth, which probably means it’s safe to let him go. Louis drops his hand but puts it on Liam’s shoulder instead, just so he can’t go far.

“Louis,” Liam says, and then he just stops and doesn’t say anything else for like five minutes. Or thirty seconds at least, but either way, it’s a really long time when Louis has just got all emotional all over him. There were definite implied declarations of intent in there, practically.

“I really like you,” he says, just in case Liam needs it to be a little more blatant and on the table, even if his bravado kind of disappears midway through. “I do.”

“Louis,” Liam says again, helplessly, and then his hand is on Louis’s chin and he’s leaning in to softly, sweetly, kiss Louis.

Louis prides himself on his ability to always keep his mind running and his observational powers active no matter the situation, but he's pretty sure his brain blanks out for the next few minutes. If someone asked him to describe it he couldn't; it's just — Liam, and lovely.

When his higher functions come back online, he's in the middle of completely disregarding his ankle in order to climb onto Liam’s lap. Louis has some pretty good ideas sometimes.

Liam pulls back enough to say, “Louis! What are you doing? Your ankle —”

“Totally healed,” Louis lies shamefully. “What ankle? Go back to the kissing, that was going in a good direction.”

Liam slants him a dubious look. Then he just — lifts Louis up like it's nothing, rearranging him until his legs are across Liam’s lap and his ankle is resting safely on one of Louis’s squashy pillows. 

Louis swallows the noise his brain wants him to make, which is very high-pitched and entirely incomprehensible. “Have you always been able to do that?” he asks. It’s still a little squeakier than he would like. Apparently it’s impossible to keep his voice normal when he’s this blindingly turned on.

“You’re not actually that big, Louis,” Liam says, and then he laughs at the face Louis makes and leans over to kiss his cheek.

“Just for that, I think you should carry me to bed,” Louis says. He leans in to kiss Liam properly and then pulls back, because he’s a _genius_. “Wait, you should absolutely do that.”

“Louis…” Liam says, except he’s sounding cautious instead of helpless and fond again, which is definitely less preferable.

“You don’t want me to walk all the way there on my ankle, do you?” he asks with wide eyes.

Liam knows exactly what he's doing and still gives in, which is exactly the way Louis likes it. “Fine,” he says. “But just so you can go to sleep, alright? It's been a long day.”

“Absolutely,” Louis agrees. It's not precisely a lie. It's been a very long day. Louis just has very good stamina. “You should take your glasses off, they keep poking me.”

“Shouldn't matter if I'm just letting you go to sleep, right?” Liam says, the terrible smug bastard. He slips his arms carefully behind Louis’s back and under his knees and stands like it's nothing.

“I'm going to make you do this forever,” Louis says delightedly, wrapping his arms around Liam's neck. He leans up to bite Liam’s neck, just because he can. 

“You’re a monster,” Liam says. His neck doesn't look like it's going to bruise, but that's alright; Louis can just try harder later.

“You love me,” Louis tells him. “Bet you’re great at wall sex, I've always wanted to try that.”

Liam groans. “Sleep,” he says firmly.

“Of course, Liam,” Louis says, grinning at him. “Whatever you say.” He's not lying, anyway. He does plan to sleep. Eventually.

-

Thirty minutes later, he’s got Liam out of his too-big button down — which, really, he needs to get rid of about half of Liam’s wardrobe — and down to an undershirt that pulls where it stretches over his shoulders. His hair is all mussed from where Louis yanked the shirt over his head and his glasses are off because they got stuck on the collar.

Louis pauses with his hands around Liam’s even-more-impressive-from-close-up biceps, blinks, looks again just to double check, and says, “Wait, why didn’t you just _tell_ me you were Superman?”

Liam freezes. “Er. What?”

Everything is suddenly clicking into placing with astonishing rapidity. Louis really feels a bit stupid in hindsight. “Well, I would have been much less annoyed with you for wandering off if I knew you were saving people from muggers and hadn’t just got lost somewhere. Also I would’ve been much less terrified for your _life_ today, thanks for that one.” He smacks Liam’s shoulder. He’s Superman, he can handle it.

Although if he’s Superman that means that Louis might never be able to give him a proper love bite. That’s a bit distressing. On the other hand, it does mean that Louis can bite him as often as he wants without having him complain later about being all black and blue.

“I’m not —” Liam tries, and Louis snorts.

“Yeah, right. Did Zayn know before you decided to get the costume and everything? He must have, you said he dealt with something like this before.” That explains a lot about the weirdly high levels of vandalism and whatever in Wolverhampton when they were growing up, probably. “Ha! Now you _have_ to tell me all your teenage stories.”

Liam is looking a little shell-shocked, even though he really ought to be used to Louis by now. “You’re not — mad?”

Louis blinks at him. “Why would I be mad? Mad that it took me so long, maybe, it’s not like you’re subtle or anything. You don’t even wear a mask, this is really embarrassing.”

Seriously, Louis stares at his face all the time, he shouldn’t have missed this.

“Mad that I — I lied to you, or that I practically brought all these supervillains to Metropolis, or —”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Mate, you do think quite a lot of yourself, don’t you?”

“Louis,” Liam says, and Louis sighs and shoves him off and to the side. If they’re going to be serious about this, they might as well have their faces at approximately the same vertical height. Plus having Liam on top of him is really wreaking havoc with his self-control.

“Look, you numpty, maybe putting a giant S on your chest makes you think the world revolves around you, but I’ve been working in Metropolis a lot longer than you, so believe me, okay? Haven’t you noticed that almost all of this goes back to Syco eventually? And they’ve been around for a lot longer than you, so. Stop with the self-pity and get back to kissing me.”

“Stilt-man wasn’t Syco,” Liam says.

Louis smiles fondly. “No, Stilt-man was just fun. Also ridiculous. And didn’t he used to work in the Syco R&D department, anyway?”

“What about the earthquakes today?” Liam asks stubbornly.

“The earthquakes where you saved like a million people from dying in a bunch of collapsing buildings? Oh, yeah, how terrible of you. Anyway, he was looking for those stupid space rocks, that didn’t have anything to do with you.”

Liam clears his throat. Louis’s brain goes through an abrupt train of thought that jumps from “meteor” to “Wolverhampton,” cycles through a variety of different options including “radiation mutation,” “magic,” and “aliens,” and lands very firmly on “Nope, not now.”

“We’re going to leave that one for tomorrow morning, I can’t deal with outer space right now,” he says. “And I’m still not seeing how that’s a dealbreaker.”

“It’s dangerous,” Liam insists. 

Louis smiles at him. He really is terribly fond of this boy. “Liam. It’s so sweet that you think I care? But I don’t care. Really don’t care. I’ve been in fewer life-threatening situations since we started working together than pretty much any other time since I became a reporter. And I’m counting my internship in the Sports section.” And his time at the uni newspaper, now that he thinks of it.

“Louis, you know that’s… not reassuring, right?” Liam asks, with that little furrow between his eyebrows. Louis is very familiar with that furrow. It’s practically an old friend by now.

“Hmm, too bad,” he says. “Guess you’ll just have to stick with me, then.” He pushes on Liam’s shoulder, and Liam obligingly rolls onto his back. Louis immediately rolls on top of him. “Look, I like you. You like me.” He pauses. “You do like me, don’t you?”

Liam’s voice is soft when he says, “I’ve liked you since the first time you called me an idiot for rescuing you.”

God, it’s like he _wants_ Louis to derail this conversation and just kiss him until morning. “So just make this easy on yourself and give up. I’m very persistent, you know.”

“I’d heard that,” Liam says drily. Louis is willing to accept sarcasm as a good sign.

“And very smart,” Louis continues.

“Well,” Liam says, with a little bit of a smile. “You _are_ an award-winning investigative reporter, after all.”

Louis grins down at him. “You’d better take me flying, you know. And I was dead serious about that wall sex thing.”

“Are you quite finished?” Liam asks, and Louis kisses him until he shuts up and kisses back.

 

 

**ONE YEAR LATER**

“Hey!” Liam says when he picks up the phone, all breathless cheer. “I’m on my way to the restaurant, I’ll be there in —”

“Shhh,” Louis says hastily, hunching a little farther into the corner behind the dumpster. The streetlight flickers, and he dares another glimpse out across the street. “I’m down by the Stadium, I think something’s going on.”

There’s a pause from the other end of the line as Liam reassesses. “Reporter going on, or Superman going on?” he asks.

Louis makes a considering noise. “Eh. Could be either. Come check it out with me?”

“You _said_ that you were just stopping by Stan’s place,” Liam says, but he sounds too amused for Louis to really be in trouble. “‘Oh, no, Liam, I won’t be late at all, we’re taking the night off!’”

“Is that supposed to be me? Because that was terrible,” Louis informs him. “And anyway, who flew off in the middle of lunch the other day and didn’t even get me an exclusive?”

“I said I was sorry!” Liam protests, halfway to a giggle. “And you ate my sandwich, anyway.”

Louis sighs deeply. “A boyfriend who ignores me to rescue kittens from trees. Why do I even put up with you.”

“You’re the one who keeps running into trouble when I’m not even there,” Liam says, and then there’s a muffled sound of air rushing past. Louis smiles, leaning back against the brick wall and keeping the phone pressed to his ear. He doesn’t hang up until Liam super-speeds to a halt right next to him, still in his suit with his tie only a little bit askew.

“Hi,” Louis says, and kisses him. Just quickly, because there’s mischief afoot, but he’d have to be a much stronger man to resist kissing Liam pretty much any chance he gets.

“Niall is going to be so smug,” Liam says, and Louis groans softly.

“Niall is always smug,” he says. Niall’s been smug ever since they told him and Harry that Liam was Superman and it turned out he’d already known. Really, miss one little thing… “And he’s wrong, anyway, it’s not _every_ time. We made it to dinner at that Italian restaurant.”

“And then it got set on fire by that performance arsonist.” Liam’s frowning at the dumpster with the weird little squint that actually means he’s looking through it, and probably through the stadium walls as well.

“We were practically to dessert by that point, that doesn’t count,” Louis says, but he smiles. That was a good night. And they got some really spectacular leftovers after Louis evacuated everyone and Liam saved the kitchen from exploding.

“Still. Want to get takeout instead, after?” Liam asks. “Keep from tempting fate again.”

God, Louis loves him. “God, I love you,” Louis says, because it’s the sort of thought that’s worth sharing. “Chinese?”

“Sure,” Liam is saying, when an alarm suddenly starts blaring from across the street. Liam sighs. “Costume, you think?”

“Yeah,” Louis agrees, and reels him in by the tie for a short, hard kiss. “Happy anniversary, babe.” His fingers are already busy unbuttoning Liam’s shirt, pushing apart the fabric to reveal the sigil below.

Liam grins at him, stashing his glasses — somewhere. Louis has seen this happen a million times and he still doesn’t know where. Maybe this is what his mum meant when she said that there was always some mystery left in a relationship. “See you inside. Try to stay away from people with guns.”

“Try not to ruin my story,” Louis tells him, grinning back. He had a whole speech planned out for tonight and everything, but he thinks the ring will probably look even better over takeout at Louis’s flat as it would in the low lights of the fancy restaurant where their reservation is going to waste.

He’s got to figure out the best way to break into a secure building, avoid getting caught by bad guys, get the scoop, and be home in time to propose to his boyfriend while it’s still their anniversary, but first he lets himself take one indulgent moment to watch as Liam sweeps through the dark sky in a flash of blue and red. It’s a great view, after all. It’d be a shame to waste it.


End file.
